How the Blues reversed the game's flow, then held on to beat Carolina 4-3
The Blues' 4-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes Saturday night at Enterprise Center featured some familiar themes.
Once again, the Blues had to make critical mid-game adjustments after falling behind early.
Once again, they had to show resilience in the face of adversity after a huge momentum shift.
This game started ominously for the Blues.
They were fortunate to trail only 1-0 after Carolina dominated the first 20 minutes.
After surging to a 3-1 lead in the second period, they had to withstand the Hurricanes fierce third-period rally.
Carolina had tied the game 3-3, then Kasperi Kapanen scored the decisive goal.
The Blues held on from there, with goaltender Joel Hofer capping his 37-save performance by fending off a last-minute flurry.
Its pretty simple, Kapanen said.
We played bad in the first period, we regrouped and won a big hockey game for us.
So everybody is pretty happy right now.
The Hurricanes came hard at the Blues, just as they came hard at the Penguins Friday night while winning 4-1 in Pittsburgh.
They are who they are, Blues coach Drew Bannister noted beforehand.
They are a working team.
They skate, theyre a team that just keeps coming at you, keeps coming at you.
Their back end has changed a little bit, but the way they play hasnt changed, the aggressiveness.
Their forwards are big, strong, they want to wear you down.
There will be a lot of pucks to our net.
Ah, but the Blues did not heed this Hurricanes warning.
Carolina outshot the Blues 19-4 in the first period.
The Hurricanes built a 32-7 advantage in shot attempts and limited the Blues to 2:22 in offensive zone time.
Somehow the Blues escaped the period behind by just one goal.
Hofer, making his second straight start, withstood the barrage.
For me, a lot of it started at the offensive blue line, Bannister said.
I think we had 12 turnovers at the offensive blue line.
When youre doing that, you starting to chase the game.
We didnt play to the goal line, we werent able to get to the forecheck.
That allowed the Hurricanes to get into high gear.
We were honestly turning pucks over too much in the neutral zone, Blues winger Dylan Holloway said.
If you fuel their line rushes, you spend a lot of time in your zone, added his linemate Mathieu Joseph.
Finally, the Blues were able to reverse the games flow and tilt the ice the other way.
I thought, as a whole, our group in the second period was committed to playing to the goal line, Bannister said.
Youre allowed to get our forwards in the foreheck, to get our D more active to keep pucks live on the walls.
Then the offensive opportunities started to come for us.
The third line centered by Brayden Schenn converted sustained offensive zone pressure into a goal.
Pierre-Olivier Joseph passed the puck down low to Schenn, who slid the puck to Mathieu Joseph for this turnaround shot from the slot.
Jake Neighbours made it 2-1 by converting the turnover forced by linemate Zack Bolduc along the right wall.
(Bolducs) stick has been much, much better and its starting to break up plays and create offense going the other way, Bannister said.
Holloway increased the lead to 3-1 after defenseman Philip Broberg zig-zagged toward the goal and fed him for a clean break-in.
The Hurricanes being the Hurricanes, they jumped the Blues for two goals early in the third period to tie the game 3-3.
The Blues didnt buckle, though, and the fourth line provided the decisive goal with Kapanen moving in to beat Carolina goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov one-on-one.
It was kind of a broken play, Kapanen said.
I had quite a bit of speed there.
I just tried to kind of poke it to myself and backhand, forehand, high glove, what Im used to doing.
From there, Bannister said, youre just trying to make sure you defend the lead, and do proper things and make hard plays and simplify and (make) high percentage plays.
And once again, they did..
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