DENVER — More than three months later than usual, hockey season began Wednesday night for the St. Louis Blues in the shadow of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. So late in fact, that the 2020 part of “2020-21” season can be scrapped.
Unlike last season, no banners were unfurled to honor a Blues’ Stanley Cup championship. There was no pomp and circumstance, not even any cardboard cutouts in a fan-free Ball Arena. That’s right, the home of Stan Kroenke’s Avalanche is no longer called Pepsi Center. Naming rights for the venue now belong to an aluminum packaging company. Pretty sexy, eh?
Be that as it may, the Blues began the new season on the right skate, defeating the Avalanche 4-1.
It snapped a three-game losing streak to the Colorado hockey team, the odds-on favorite to win the newly constituted West Division.
Things couldn’t have started worse for the Blues. The team was barely on the ice for the pregame skate when the team announced that Mike Hoffman was ineligible to play because of work visa issues. Yes, that Mike Hoffman, the sharp-shooting forward from Kitchener, Ontario.
Wait, it gets worse. If coach Craig Berube said once in recent days that the Blues had to stay out of the penalty box against the potent Avalanche. ... Well, he said it several times.
Apparently, Marco Scandella and Sammy Blais didn’t get the memo. Just 61 seconds into the game, Scandella went off for hooking. The Blues killed that penalty with ease — the Avalanche had only one shot on goal. But just 1 minute, 42 seconds after that penalty, the Blues were shorthanded once more.
Blais, who was activated in Hoffman’s absence, was sent off for elbowing Devon Toews at the 4:43 mark of the period. This time, Colorado wasted little time getting on the board. Just 12 seconds after Blais went off, Andre Burakovksy beat Jordan Binnington from the right circle for a 1-0 Avs lead.
Just 45 seconds after the goal, Matt Calvert hit the post for Colorado. The Blues were scrambling.
But not for long. A sharp lead pass from Robert Thomas sprung Jaden Schwartz down the ice. Schwartz skated in close to Avalanche goalie Philipp Grubauer, then dished to Oskar Sundqvist on his right. Sundqvist sent his shot over Grubauer’s blocker before crashing into the end boards. It was a 1-1 game midway through the period.
(Sundqvist moved up from the fourth line to the second line, replacing Hoffman.)
Less than four minutes later, Jordan Kyrou’s strong training camp turned into a strong opener. Charging in on Grubauer, Kyrou and Tyler Bozak pulled off a slick give-and-go, with Kyrou passing to Bozak and then Bozak back to Kyrou, whose shot slid in under the stick of a diving Grubauer.
So it was 2-1 St. Louis with 6:45 left in the first. The Blues took the play to Colorado the rest of the period, outshooting the Avalanche 18-5 over the 20 minutes.
There were a lot of shots, mainly by Colorado, but no goals in the second period. Thanks to some impressive work by Binnington, the Blues were able to maintain their 2-1 lead entering the third. But in contrast to the first period, the ice was heavily tilted in Colorado’s favor in the second period.
With tons of possession time, the Avalanche swarmed around Binnington — outshooting the Blues 15-6. A lot of those shots were from close range. One of the best came with two minutes left when Mikko Rantanen had a clean look at Binnington from about 20 feet, but Binnington snared with a glove save.
You might recall that in his last two visits here to the Mile High City, Binnington allowed seven and then four goals and was pulled both times. Different night, new season.
The Blues continued to get themselves in trouble with penalties, with Roberto Bortuzzo sent to the box twice: once for covering the puck in a net-front scramble and once for holding Calvert. But the Blues got through unscathed, and even got a bit of a reprieve of sorts during the second Bortuzzo penalty when Nazem Kadri was whistled for crosschecking Ivan Barbashev.
As a result, the Blues got 53 seconds of 4-on-4 time, which helped them get back on their game offensively over the final five minutes of the period. Their best chance came with 1:29 left in the second when David Perron clanged a shot off the crossbar.
The third period started out a lot like the second, with Colorado getting most of the possession time, although they weren’t pelting Binnington with nearly as many shots. What was evolving into a tight-checking finish changed unexpectedly with the Blues’ new-look fourth line scoring a valuable insurance goal.
With Barbashev working behind the net for the puck, Kyle Clifford snuck into the near slot, took a pass from Barbashev and sent a left-handed shot past Grubauer — blocker side — for a 3-1 Blues lead with 13:14 left to play.
That made it a pretty good 30th birthday for Clifford, signed as a free-agent from Toronto after spending most of his career with the Los Angeles Kings. From the start of camp, he has fit in seamlessly on the fourth line, even one that included Blais instead of Sundqvist on Wednesday due to Hoffman’s absence.
Just in case the Avalanche had any ideas about a comeback, Sundqvist struck again with 5:38 to play to stretch the Blues’ lead to 4-1. Hoffman, Smoffman, right? Sundqvist rose to the occasion Wednesday night, as he has done frequently over the past couple of seasons.
