The Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues clashed Saturday night in St. Louis to determine which team would take a 2-1 lead in the series. And while the Avalanche prevailed 5-2, it was a much closer game than the score would indicate.
Much like Games 1 and 2, Game 3 was a physical matchup between two teams loaded with offensive talent. It was tightly contested at even strength. Power plays hardly mattered. And while I do think Colorado was the better team, St. Louis pushed hard and kept the game within one goal until late in the third period.
Here’s a few thoughts.
Blues forward Ivan Barbashev made an impact early, but he woke up the Avalanche.
In his first shift of the game, Barbashev absolutely destroyed Avalanche defenseman Samuel Girard behind the net with a massive hit. The initial contact was body-on-body, but the collision sent Girard hard into the boards. He suffered a broken sternum on the play and is out for the remainder of the season.
What I found was surprising was the lack of response from Colorado. Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog was nearby, but he chose not to engage Barbashev. Usually a hit of that magnitude will — at minimum — garner a verbal battle. But nothing happened.
Fast forward to Barbashev’s next shift. The Blues were leading 1-0 on a goal by Colton Parayko. The whistle blew and Barbashev skated directly through the Avalanche crease and made light contact with goaltender Darcy Kuemper.
This time, Barbashev got a reaction. Colorado center Nazem Kadri chased the Blues forward 70 feet up the ice, barking at him the entire time.
At 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, Barbashev isn’t an imposing figure. But he hits like a truck. Barbashev had five hits in Game 3.
Nazem Kadri drove the St. Louis net knowing it could end in a collision with Jordan Binnington, who left the game with a lower-body injury.
I don’t think Kadri ran Binnington on purpose. But I do think he was fully aware that Blues defenseman Calle Rosen was coming, and that there was a good chance they would both end up hurtling into the St. Louis goal.
In my opinion, when Barbashev made contact with Kuemper earlier in the first period, it fuelled the Avalanche bench. There’s no way it wasn’t noticed. Players see those things, and they all talk.
I’ve seen this play out so many times. Your team’s goalie gets touched. Someone on the bench says it’s time to go after the other team’s goalie. Maybe not run him, but make him uncomfortable. Get in his crease. Chirp him.
Players know that driving the net with a defenseman converging can result in an ugly collision. Usually they’ll try to let up a little or get the right body position to lessen the blow. But if it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs, and you’ve just witnessed your own goaltender being messed around with like Barbashev did to Kuemper. It can change a mindset. And I think that might have played a factor in Kadri driving the St. Louis net with reckless abandon.
But here’s the thing: It wasn’t a penalty. The referees made the right call in letting the play go. Kadri and Rosen were battling hard for the puck in the slot, with a ton of momentum going toward the net, and neither did anything illegal.
Rosen was stopping in front of the net to box out Kadri, and the puck was directly in front of the Blues defenseman’s stick. He was eligible to be hit in that situation. Kadri tries to go through Rosen for the puck and makes heavy contact, driving him forward.
I think it was a dangerous play. Kadri was behind Rosen, and he sent the Blues defenseman flying into his own goalie. But it’s also the Stanley Cup playoffs. Some players are willing to do just about anything to win.
Controversy aside: Kadri was outstanding.
The 31-year old center from London, Ontario, picked up his second goal of the playoffs by tipping a Cale Makar point shot at 13:88, just seconds after an Avalanche power play expired. Kadri also added an assist on Artturi Lehkonen’s goal to make it 3-1 in favor of Colorado late in the second period.
But for me, it was how hard Kadri competed. He back-checked with a purpose and won puck battles. Kadri fueled the Avalanche transition game and was on the ice for 11 scoring chances during even-strength play — the most among Colorado players.
Every team needs sandpaper in their lineup, and Kadri provided it Saturday night. From the collision with Binnington to carrying Blues forward Jordan Kyrou’s stick for a joyride, Kadri got under the skin of the Blues.
St. Louis has no chance of advancing unless Robert Thomas gets it together.
The Blues center enjoyed a breakout regular season in which he tallied 77 points, but he’s struggled mightily in the postseason thus far. Thomas has just three assists in nine games during the 2021-22 Stanley Cup playoffs, and zero points against the Avalanche.
And it gets worse. Thomas was minus-3 on Saturday, bringing him to minus-5 in the series against Colorado. It took three games before Thomas was able to record a shot on goal.
He simply isn’t producing. Colorado had done a good job of containing Thomas, but I think he’s lacking an assertiveness to his game. He looks unsure and tentative. And that’s not a good mental space for a gifted offensive player to occupy.
The Avalanche made one small change to their lineup, and it paid off.
For Game 3, Colorado head coach Jared Bednar swapped forwards, taking Nico Sturm out of the lineup and inserting Logan O’Connor. It didn’t take long for the move to make a difference: O’Connor scored at 10:57 of the first period.
The 25-year old University of Denver product is an interesting case. He played 81 games this season, scoring eight times and adding 16 assists. O’Connor played up and down the lineup on right wing as needed.
But he’s largely been a spare part in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs. Saturday night was just his fourth postseason appearance. O’Connor may have only played just under eight minutes, but he made the most of it.
I think he skates well. And at times O’Connor has shown a nose for the net. But his consistency is still a work in progress, and the Avalanche are deep. I’ll be interested to see if he stays in the lineup.
Darcy Kuemper allowed yet another glove-side goal, while Ville Husso wasn’t able to bail his team out when they needed it most.
At this point, I think it’s an open secret that the Blues are targeting the glove of Darcy Kuemper. The puck simply refuses to stay in the pocket of his trapper.
Case in point: Ryan O’Reilly’s goal in the dying moments of the second period. Blues defenseman Nick Leddy fired a shot from the top of the circle to Kuemper’s glove side, and the Avalanche netminder wasn’t able to control the rebound. O’Reilly pounced and collected his seventh goal of the postseason.
It reminded me of David Perron’s glove-side goal in Game 2 that went off the heel of Kuemper’s glove. It wasn’t a bad goal. But it was the type of save a team needs if it wants to win a Stanley Cup. Good goaltending will get a team into the Stanley Cup playoffs. But more often than not, great goaltending is needed to win a championship.
Kuemper still has room to improve. And the same can be said for Ville Husso. Granted, it wasn’t an ideal situation — coming in off the bench is never easy. But Husso didn’t look particularly comfortable in his crease.
O’Connor’s goal was something of a broken play, and Husso had just entered the game. So I’m willing to give a pass on that goal. Same goes for Kadri’s deflection of the Makar point shot. Not many goalies are going to stop that.
But the two-on-one goal scored by Avalanche forward Artturi Lehkonen needed to be stopped. Lehkonen was on his proper wing and losing shooting angle as he tracked toward the goal line. Husso failed to adjust and allowed space on the short side for Lehkonen to score.
With the Blues down 2-1 in the series, and Binnington on the shelf for the foreseeable future, the pressure is on Husso. But I also think Kuemper is feeling a little bit of heat. He’s been good enough but Kuemper hasn’t shown his cards yet.
Cale Makar and Devon Toews were forced to step up.
With Girard out with an injury less than a minute into Game 3, time on ice immediately went up for all of Colorado’s defenders. Makar ended up playing nearly 29 minutes, while Toews was on the ice for more than 30.
That’s a heavy night. And despite the extra workload, I thought it was Makar’s best game of the series. He assisted on Kadri’s second-period goal and had several key blocked shots. Makar dropped down low several times in the offensive zone and showed the elite mobility that defines his game. He was on the ice for team-loading 13 scoring chances.
Ryan O’Reilly continues to show why he’s one of the premier centers in the NHL.
It’s not just because O’Reilly has scored seven goals in the postseason and is riding a seven-game scoring streak. It’s because O’Reilly has done so against the Avalanche’s top line. Just like he did against the Minnesota Wild’s.
O’Reilly isn’t going to lead the NHL in scoring any time soon. But his all-around game is one of the best. I have a lot of time for players who can think on their skates. Watching the game’s best decipher plays in real time — and defend against them — impresses me just as much as a player going coast-to-coast and scoring.
I think O’Reilly has been the best center in the series. There’s a reason why he’s a Conn Smythe winner as the 2019 playoff MVP.
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