DENVER — One-hundred-and-twenty minutes of hockey can be summed up in one second.
Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly skated behind his net to retrieve the puck.
Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog trailed and perfectly crunched O’Reilly into the boards.
Oh, and Colorado got the puck back. Oh, and Colorado then scored.
On Wednesday, the Avalanche brutalized and demoralized the Blues. Again. The Blues just can’t keep up. The Avs won Game 2, 6-3, and lead the first-round series, 2-0. From Nathan MacKinnon to Cale Makar, COVID sidelinings to COVID scares, Colorado’s abusive offense to Colorado’s abusive cheap shots, this whole week in Denver has been like one giant body check into the boards.
It’ll takes a lot of grasping for straws to come up with reasons the Blues could win this series. Heck, win a game. But it’s only fair to point out these five facts:
— In the second half of Game 2, the Blues got into their game more — play-making foresight, forechecking and forwards actually attacking the net front. As O’Reilly said after the game, the Blues finally “saw what it looks like.”
— For all the Colorado dominance, the Avs did only score two even-strength goals all night.
— The Blues only had four defensemen down the stretch — and one of the guys knocked out was their minutes-gobbler Justin Faulk.
— Down 4-3, the Blues blew it with the empty net — with a chance to tie the game, the Blues were soft on the puck … which ended up in said net.
— The Blues had to deal with the stress of the COVID scares to Jordan Binnington and Vladimir Tarasenko.
OK, with those out of the way, the reality is that Colorado plays sublime hockey. They’re playing like it’s their year, their turn. And Colorado doesn’t look at the Blues like we do. See, we look at the Blues as the 2019 Stanley Cup champs, who also led the conference in 2020 when the pandemic hit and, in 2021, still won a good share of games even with a ton of man games lost. Colorado looks at the Blues as a dispensable, beatable bunch. The Avalanche will need extra travel bags to pack all the confidence they’re bringing to St. Louis.
In Game 2, the Avalanche beat the Blues with speed, with hustle, with strategy and, also, with illegal hits to the head.
It’s hard to imagine the Blues getting back in this series. Yes, sure, they say a series doesn’t start until the home team loses. But there was something about these two losses in Denver that felt overwhelming.
Credit the Blues for playing gutsy hockey after being down 1-0 in the series and 3-0 on the road in the third period. The Blues were down two defensemen — Robert Bortuzzo and Faulk — both hit to the head by Tyson Jost and Nazem Kadri, respectfully (though with no respect). But in the end, Colorado proved to be the better team, yet again.
It all started with the captain-on-captain crunch. The Avs started the game with a furious forecheck and the symbolic Landeskog crunching of captain counterpart O’Reilly. Shortly after, with the puck still in the Avs’ offensive zone, Joonas Donskoi redirected a Ryan Graves shot for a goal — just 35 seconds in. The first period was an abomination of infuriation. Where was the fire? Where was the anger? Where was the pride?
The Blues were just off — and offensive efforts seemed futile. Sloppy play in the neutral zone. Shots from the outside with no one near the crease for rebounds. Little forecheck pressure. The Avalanche just controlled every aspect of the game. It was hard to watch — it was also amazing to watch, because it was brilliance on ice from the home team. At the end of the first period, Colorado had two goals on 19 shots and the Blues had none on just six shots on goal.
The Blues showed more life in the second half of the second period. That was something. They went to the dressing room down 3-1, and they battled back in the third for a while there, too.
But they lost the game. For stretches, they looked lost. And now, there’s the possible loss of Faulk and Bortuzzo for Game 3 (we’ll likely get medical updates Friday morning).
Clearly the Blues are missing David Perron (who’s out due to COVID protocol). He’s a leader, he’s tough with the puck, he’s a creator, he’s powerful on the power play. Oh, and he has more points than all of the other Blues. He’s feisty, too. He would’ve provided pep. This isn’t to say that one player would’ve made an 0-2 series into a 2-0 series, but surely he would’ve provided some more offense that the Blues got here in Denver.
And it’s hard to know just how much, but the Blues must’ve been affected by the infuriating unfairness of inaccurate COVID test results.
For the second postseason in a row, COVID, and all that comes with it, affected the St. Louis Blues. After last season’s bubble debacle, general manager Doug Armstrong said that some players weren’t at their best because they were still recovering from COVID-19. This postseason, of course, the Blues have been without top point man Perron. And then came Wednesday’s unnecessary stress.
The goalie Binnington and forward Tarasenko missed morning skate and were kept in isolation because of inaccurate COVID test results. What a mess. The league later said the “initial reported test results were in error.”
But that wasn’t announced until after lunch. Coach Craig Berube and his staff had to deal with something their opponents didn’t — having to put together revised lines and special teams matchups, while also preparing to have a rookie backup (Ville Husso) start Game 2 in net.
It was particularly unfair for Binnington, Goalies, similar to baseball pitchers, are creatures of habit. They thrive off the routine. And the morning skate is a way for the goalie to get in some work in the crease, to get a feel for it all. There are conversations and breakdowns of the opponent. It’s important prep work. And on the day of the biggest game of the season, Binnington didn’t get his morning skate.
Though here’s the thing — the fact that the Blues routinely let the Avs screen Binnington wouldn’t have been remedied by any morning skate. The fact that the Blues allowed the Avs to get on the power play multiple times wouldn’t have changed with Binnington there in the morning.
The Avs beat the Blues because the Avs are better than the Blues.
Now the Blues will head home for two games, hoping to restart a series that already seems won.
