The St. Louis Blues, with a 16-9-4 record, are behind the Dallas Stars, and are in second place in the Central Division.
Advertisement
Okposo got his second goal of the game on a drop pass from Bailey at 2:16 of overtime to lift the New York Islanders to a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night.
The Dallas Stars have blown many of them this year.
“Most of my goals came from the blue paint or within like 3 feet of it. You get once in a while pretty, but just hard-working goals nowadays”. They still turnover the puck a lot in their own zone which only makes their defensive jobs a lot harder.
After a scoreless opening 20 minutes, Philadelphia drew first blood when Gostisbehere scored a power-play goal at 9:23 of the second period. “They had their scoring chances”.
Vladimir Tarasenko and Ryan Reaves scored in the third period to help the Blues beat the Stars for the third consecutive time. Every team has to learn as a group what they need to do to be successful, but most teams don’t keep putting up points on a almost nightly basis while learning.
“Allen was exactly what we needed”.
The Blues and Stars also both have quality goaltending: Jake Allen has been great for St. Louis with Brian Elliott serving as a solid back-up and Dallas leans on Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi for their two-starting goaltender set up. An early penalty off of a faceoff by Jason Spezza led to the Blues’ first goal of the night.
“We didn’t really buy into their track meet a ton”, Allen said.
All of the offensive talent they have cultivated under Jim Nill gives them the ability to overcome their shortfalls.
The Blues take on the Dallas Stars, the best (highest points per game) and hottest team in the league, tonight at 7pm CST at the Scottrade Center.
“I gave everything I had tonight”, Neuvirth said.
“You want to play the best I think to see where you are”. But more significantly, they kept Dallas off the scoreboard, as the Stars had 11 shots on goal and Jake Allen had to make some good saves to keep the Stars’ goal-less.
The Stars had picked up at least one point in their previous seven games, going 5-0-2, and had won their last four games in St. Louis during the last two seasons. Right now they’re a team that can beat anyone, but can lose to anyone.
“I saw the puck, so I just had to push it and it was ideal”, the Stars’ left winger said. They came out lethargic, unenergetic, made several mistakes that they were lucky to not pay for and just looked like a team that might have expected Dallas to roll over. “The more you stay on the hunt, the more you play on your toes, the more you close gaps, the more you have the puck”.
The Stars’ second-ranked power play has looked awful since Stars coach Lindy Ruff moved Patrick Sharp to the second unit and Patrick Eaves to the top unit. “We had them on their heels, we hit a few posts and didn’t find a way to get that goal to get us in that game”. I’m not going to try to convince you that giving up a bunch of goals to a bad team is ideal, but the entire point of hockey is to win games.
Advertisement
You have to be able to hold a three-goal lead or you won’t go anywhere in the National Hockey League playoffs. Jamie Benn added his NHL-leading 20th goal into an empty net with 53 seconds remaining, and Antti Niemi finished with 19 saves. C Tyler Seguin was the first to reach that plateau last season…. It was only the second time this season the Stars were shut out in the first two periods of a game.
