Season series: Ryan Johansen scored a goal and had three assists, and Nick Foligno had two goals and an assist for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who swept two games from the St. Louis Blues last season. Patrik Berglund had a goal and an assist for St. Louis. Columbus won 7-1 at Nationwide Arena on Feb. 6.
Blues team scope: St. Louis will play its third set of back-to-back games this season after defeating the Winnipeg Jets 3-2 on Tuesday. The Blues got two goals from David Backes, a goal and an assist from forward Vladimir Tarasenko and two assists from defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk. "We were able to beat a tough team in here tonight," Backes said. "We have to play a tough team that plays just as hard tomorrow night." Coach Ken Hitchcock did not commit to a starting goalie, leaving the door open for Jake Allen to play on back-to-back nights after he made 16 saves against Winnipeg. He said a couple players sustained "minor ailments;" he'll provide updates Tuesday.
Blue Jackets team scope: Columbus is aiming for its first three-game winning streak of the season. It has won six of 10, including three two-game winning streaks, after starting the season 0-8-0. The Blue Jackets, who are in the middle of playing six games in 10 days, just want to continue to get better. "We want to be a straight-line team," coach John Tortorella told the Blue Jackets website. "We want to get going quickly, we want to get going north-south. We need to continue to improve defending. It's not a complicated system that we're trying to play. We don't want a lot of thinking. We want to be a hard, straight-ahead team and not overthink things." Right wing Jared Boll will play in his 500th game. He will become the fifth player in Blue Jackets history to accomplish the feat.
Ken Hitchcock felt the only way to inspire the St. Louis Blues after back-to-back defeats was to completely rearrange his line combinations.
Now he has to decide if he wants to stick with the new look.
It seems wise to keep intact the new top line of David Backes, Vladimir Tarasenko and Alexander Steen heading into Tuesday night's road game against the Columbus Blue Jackets after a solid performance from the trio.
Backes scored twice - including the tiebreaking goal in the second period - and added an assist in Monday's 3-2 win over Winnipeg. Tarasenko scored for the third straight game and had an assist, and Steen assisted on Backes' winner.
The Blues (12-5-1) came in off consecutive games in regulation for the first time this season, prompting Hitchcock's makeover. Backes replaced Jori Lehtera, who had centered the top line for 12 games after Paul Stastny was injured but moved down to the second line with Dmitrij Jaskin and Troy Brouwer.
With Jaskin's promotion, Robby Fabbri played with Scott Gomez and Magnus Paajarvi on the third unit, and Jeremy Welsh made his team debut in place of Ryan Reaves, who was scratched.
Hitchcock also split up the defensive pairing of Jay Bouwmeester and Alex Pietrangelo.
''You don't know what that's going to be like, and then you're out there (and Tarasenko) makes a lot of time and space," Backes said. "(Steen) was fantastic, creating plays and making plays happen and I was the beneficiary of a few of them."
It remains to be seen if the lineup will look the same against the Blue Jackets (6-12-0), who are trying to win three straight for the first time this season.
Columbus earned its first home victory Saturday by beating Arizona 5-2, ending a franchise-worst 0-6-0 home start. William Karlsson scored twice, Boone Jenner had a goal and two assists and Ryan Johansen had one of each.
The Blue Jackets played their straight game without Brandon Dubinsky, who was placed in injured reserve earlier Saturday with an elbow injury that's expected to keep him out for at least a couple weeks.
''It's a monkey off the back,'' Karlsson said. ''Now we know we can win (at home)."
With Dubinsky out, coach John Tortorella had settled on moving Nick Foligno to center for at least this contest. Foligno mostly has played on the wing in his career and had career highs of 31 goals and 73 points there last season.
He has only one goal this year, while Jenner leads the club with nine.
"We talked about a number of different people," Tortorella told the team's official website after practice Monday. "I think Nick can handle the change. I just don't want to screw around with Jenner's game. Nick volunteered. He felt comfortable and that's what we went with."
The Blue Jackets now look to keep rolling. Foligno had two goals and an assist in a 7-1 victory over the Blues on Feb. 6 before Jenner scored and added an assist in a 4-2 victory March 28 to sweep the season series.
"It's going to be a competitive game," Tortorella said. "If we're not ready to compete, it could get ugly really quickly."
Sergei Bobrovsky has stopped 55 of 58 shots while winning the last two. He started both meetings with the Blues last season and could be in net again for this matchup.
Brian Elliott could get the call for St. Louis after Jake Allen won Monday. Elliott hasn't started since giving up four goals on 15 shots in a loss to Chicago on Nov. 4.
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The Blues are lucky to be down only by one after that terrible period. Being on the back end of a back-to-back and then losing a Top 2 centre in mid game is a disaster. Being outshot 21-3 seems to be the worst period for them that I can remember (at least since the bad years in the late '70s).
I hope they can gather some energy to compete in The 3rd.
Another game, another top 6 forward lost to injury. It's pretty baffling that the Blues are not only hanging in, but threatening for the top spot in the toughest division so far. All the critics of Hitch and Army should at least admit, they've done a pretty masterful job so far navigating some tough waters right out of the gate. Army's camp/depth signings have definitely helped out right off the hop. We may lose this game yet, but there's gotta be some admission out there that what this team has done so far is nothing short of admirable.
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The two clearly missed penalty calls in the 1st period certainly didn't help (high-stick to Lehtera which injured him and the ref is staring right at the play along with the interference on Steen a couple of minutes later). That's 6 minutes of power play time the refs denied the Blues and they were clearly penalties which should have been called.
Outside of that, once Lehtera went down the Blues offense disappeared. Lose 3 of your 4 starting centers forcing wingers to play center on 2 of the 3 scoring lines and it will be challenging to generate any offense.
Kind of thought they should have kept Steen, Backes and Tarasenko together after Lehtera went out, but the staff thought differently. Screw up 3 lines while letting they top line stay together. It's better than screwing up all 4 lines.
Columbus played the type of game the Blues played quite a bit last season. Just deny, deny, deny any efforts in the offensive zone and it worked. Were this Blues team healthy, I doubt that would have worked.
And, yes, the staff deserves recognition for getting the Blues where they are in spite of all the injuries.
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dmiles2186 wrote:All the critics of Hitch and Army should at least admit, they've done a pretty masterful job so far navigating some tough waters right out of the gate.
I admit that. I've thought it myself. I've also given the team a bit of a pass on how disjointed their puck movement looks because of that too.
That said, the inability of this squad to come out with any intensity in the first is something the coaching staff MUST fix. If they can't, they're not fit for purpose. Their job is to prepare and motivate the squad. They're blatantly failing at half of that mission.
ecbm wrote:That said, the inability of this squad to come out with any intensity in the first is something the coaching staff MUST fix. If they can't, they're not fit for purpose. Their job is to prepare and motivate the squad. They're blatantly failing at half of that mission.
It's also the Captain and Assistant Captain's jobs to motivate, not just the coaches.
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This injury list is getting ridiculous. But I agree with Dmiles I'm pleasantly surprised that the Blues seem to be hanging in there.
Pretty glad about all the depth signings from last summer now, sheesh...
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ecbm wrote:That said, the inability of this squad to come out with any intensity in the first is something the coaching staff MUST fix. If they can't, they're not fit for purpose. Their job is to prepare and motivate the squad. They're blatantly failing at half of that mission.
It's also the Captain and Assistant Captain's jobs to motivate, not just the coaches.
Agreed. Personally, I think Petro was given the A too soon. Backes has failed to pull his weight many nights this season.
ecbm wrote:That said, the inability of this squad to come out with any intensity in the first is something the coaching staff MUST fix. If they can't, they're not fit for purpose. Their job is to prepare and motivate the squad. They're blatantly failing at half of that mission.
It's also the Captain and Assistant Captain's jobs to motivate, not just the coaches.
Agreed. Personally, I think Petro was given the A too soon. Backes has failed to pull his weight many nights this season.
Give Tarasenko the C!
“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.”
ecbm wrote:That said, the inability of this squad to come out with any intensity in the first is something the coaching staff MUST fix. If they can't, they're not fit for purpose. Their job is to prepare and motivate the squad. They're blatantly failing at half of that mission.
It's also the Captain and Assistant Captain's jobs to motivate, not just the coaches.
Agreed. Personally, I think Petro was given the A too soon. Backes has failed to pull his weight many nights this season.
Give Tarasenko the C!
Funny! But definitely not with the lackadaisical entry to the ice shown vs the Jets when Little blasted by him for the Jets 2nd goal.
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ecbm wrote:That said, the inability of this squad to come out with any intensity in the first is something the coaching staff MUST fix. If they can't, they're not fit for purpose. Their job is to prepare and motivate the squad. They're blatantly failing at half of that mission.
It's also the Captain and Assistant Captain's jobs to motivate, not just the coaches.
Agreed. Personally, I think Petro was given the A too soon. Backes has failed to pull his weight many nights this season.
Give Tarasenko the C!
Funny! But definitely not with the lackadaisical entry to the ice shown vs the Jets when Little blasted by him for the Jets 2nd goal.
If decisions were made based on such small incidents there would be a different captain each game.
I don't think 91 is ready for it either. Backes has been and still can be a good captain and leader-he just needs to get his shit together. Steen is solid as an A but I feel like Petro needs to have as little pressure on him right now as possible. I'd have given it to Stastny or even Bouwmeester if I'm going to insist on him playing 20+ minutes every night.
