ST. LOUIS – If you listened to Oskar Sundqvist following a 7-2 thrashing of the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday at Enterprise Center, the St. Louis Blues forward cautioned against the inevitable.
“What we did tonight, we can’t be fooled by this game by winning (and) scoring seven goals,” Sundqvist warned.
No, Sundqvist wasn’t trying to get everyone to understand that the Blues (27-26-6) didn’t deserve to win the game. In fact, he was very complimentary. What he was trying to say was this was an anomaly. But when the Blues work like they did for a third straight game, the results can become contagious.
“It’s a lot of hard work that comes through it and you see it in all four lines today,” Sundqvist said. “It’s everyone. As soon as you lose the puck, it’s hard strides to get the puck back and winning battles.
“Everyone worked their asses off tonight and that’s why we were able to score seven goals.”
Sundqvist led the way with his first game in the NHL with more than two points (one goal, two assists); Cam Fowler also had a goal and two assists; Zack Bolduc scored twice, and Robert Thomas and Jake Neighbours each had a goal and an assist.
Thomas extended his point streak to seven games (four goals, seven assists), and Jordan Binnington made 25 saves, including a number of key stops to begin the second period when the Kraken (25-31-4) tried to push.
“I think we’re finding a little consistency in our game,” Fowler said. “We understand what we’re capable of when we’re doing things the right way, the depth that we have and the goaltending that we have, we feel like we can compete with anybody, but I think we’re just finding a little more consistency throughout the lineup and guys are playing hard and working hard for one another. So maybe it’s nice to recharge after the break and come back and play some good hockey so far.”
Let’s dive into Tuesday’s Three Takeaways:
* Strong first period led by multiple factors – It hasn’t been often this season where the Blues have come out strong in the first period and established tempo and the style that they want to play.
In fact, it’s been often that the Blues, a minus-11 coming into the game in goal differential in the first, have led, but when they do, it’s usually led to good results.
They are now 15-1-2 when holding a lead, and they were doing all the right things in all three zones, outshooting the Kraken 14-4, winning the face-off edge 13-5 and grabbing a 2-0 lead thanks to goals by Jordan Kyrou on a beautiful toe-drag move at 8:04:
And then Sundqvist’s career-tying third power-play goal at 12:48 to make it 2-0:
“I just liked the way that every line looked the same on the ice,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “Checking-wise, but especially offensively, we played hard, offensive hockey whereas if we didn’t have a play to make, we went in and put it behind, we went to work on the forecheck, we were putting it in an area where someone was skating towards that area. I thought the defensemen did a great job in the first period of holding the O-zone, hammering walls, having tight gaps, which allowed our forwards to get more offensive zone time and I think it really paid off. How you start the game really starts to pay off in the last half of the second period and we saw that.”
* All four lines played to their capabilities, led by Sundqvist line – Sundqvist’s line has been scrutinized for much of the season as being a weaker-type of third line, but on this night, it was as effective as any game this season.
It produced six points (three goals, three assists) and led the charge for a game in which all four lines were responsibly putting the next group on the ice into good areas.
“They were really good,” Montgomery said of the Sundqvist line. “’Sunny’ is the glue guy that connects the other guys. He’s kind of like the brains behind the operation. The other two guys can fly. Boldy’s habits are really getting good without the puck. He’s stopping on pucks. He had a defensive play in the first period, a tracking play where they stopped and they tried to go East-West and he seeing it now, he’s stopping, he’s making calm, collected plays offensively and the skill set we all know is there. There’s a reason why he was drafted where we drafted him, is because of his ability to make offensive plays and score goals.”
What does ‘glue guy’ mean on this line?
“I don’t really know. I’m playing with some very talented players,” Sundqvist said, not wanting to take the credit. “I’m always trying to give them room and try to be a safety wall for them, help them out with different aspects of the game that I’m pretty good at. It’s fun to play with (them) now and I think our team’s playing some good hockey since the break.”
Bolduc added, “The three guys on our line played well. We were skating. Our timing was good. The D-men were just flying out there and makes it so much easier for us.
“[Sundqvist’s] a smart player. He’s reading off me because sometimes I’m out of position and he’s just covering me. No one sees that, but he’s smart and he’s taking care of the defensive zone of the ice and he’s good with his face-offs.”
* Offensive play not allowing opponent transition, making good, smart puck plays – When you don’t turn pucks over in the offensive zone, chances are you’re wearing the opposition down and forcing them to chase.
There’s also instances when you’re transitioning pucks up ice and making good, sound decisions, like Neighbours did on Thomas’s goal that made it 3-0 at 5:10 of the second period:
But then there’s net drive that allows guys like Bolduc to be open and Sundqvist to sell the shot and slide it to an open teammate like he did for Bolduc at 8:23 to make it 4-0:
“It’s a mindset and it’s a willingness to play hard offensive hockey,” Montgomery said. “I think you’re starting to see more net drives. That’s the second component of hard offense. It’s not just willing to go forecheck, it’s when we have speed on the outside, we’ve got to have speed in the middle of the ice. That creates either defenseman coming in late open or the wide guy open.
“A great example is Bolduc’s goal. If ‘Sunny’ doesn’t drive through the middle and get that play, there’s no low slot line play to happen. But we need that middle lane drive there.”
Or there’s Fowler’s seeing-eye shot from near the blue line that chased Joey Daccord from the net at 9:45 that made it 5-0, all part of the defensemen holding the zone and keeping the puck alive because of trust with the forwards:
“I think that goes to us being connected as a five-man group,” Fowler said. “I think we can only do that if we have forwards and high forwards reloading so that when we pinch down that they’re covering for us. There’s everybody included in making that play happen, but when we do have it going and we’re connected that way, we do feel like we’re able to keep a lot of pucks alive and it helps our offense as well. We’ve got ‘D’ that can skate as well. It’s an advantage of ours of we’re doing things the right way and those guys are covering for us, it makes our job easy.”
Montgomery said, “It’s the forwards coming back hard through the middle, so they can. The trust by the defensemen is the forwards coming back through the middle. If you’re watching a lot of those plays, you’re going to see a forward that ends up in between our defensemen, our guy going down the wall. And then once they push it back, they come back out and that forward goes back in. So we’re really playing five guys in each zone together.”
And then there’s another seam play where puck play is smart and the open guy [Fowler] finds the open man [Neighbours] without forcing a puck somewhere else, and Neighbours made it 6-0 at 11:55 against Nikke Kokko, making his NHL debut in goal:
“The offensive opportunities were coming,” Montgomery said. ‘We started seeing it building in the last two periods of the Winnipeg game. We were seeing it again in the Colorado game for 60 minutes. It’s just repetitions, building good habits and the habits are there right now and it’s kind of like it happened a little while back where we went on a heater there (when) we were scoring a lot of goals. We’ve just got to make sure we maintain our defensive habits.”
