Blues Game Day: We meet again
Blues #Blues
DENVER – Over the last 16 months, Colorado and St. Louis have played each other 15 times. And sure, there have been some personnel changes from last season to this season. But not that many. There are few secrets by now; the teams know each other very well.
To the point where Blues coach Craig Berube couldn’t help but laugh when asked if this was a different Colorado team.
“They’re pretty good still,” Berube said. “I don’t know if I see a whole lot of change. They’ve added a couple guys here and there. They added (Josh) Manson back there, it’s a big D-man. Plays a pretty good defensive game and big in front of his net. A different goalie (Darcy Kuemper).
“But they’re still the team that we faced last year. The MacKinnons and the Makars, the Landeskogs and the Rantanens. They got a lot of great ability and they attack all the time. Very good around the net offensively, and we gotta be good there. We gotta really do a good job around our net.”
The Blues have to do a good job everywhere, because Colorado has dominated the Blues – and the rest of the NHL – lately. Over those last 16 months, the Avs are 11-4-0 against the Blues. Colorado went 5-3-0 against the Blues last regular season and then swept the first-round playoff series between the teams, four games to none.
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During the 2021-22 regular season, Colorado took two of three games.
In one sense, the familiarity helps, according to Blues defenseman Justin Faulk.
“But at the same time it’s a different atmosphere, different stakes, right?,” Faulk said. “Probably last year we got a little bit sick of each other (with eight regular-season matchups).
“I think it’s just gonna be a different feel to the series than it is to the regular season. Stuff gets tighter. It’s tougher. Both teams are deep and excited for it, I think. So we’re excited for it and ready for a tough, long series.”
The Blues are the heavy underdogs; there aren’t many outside St. Louis who think the team can win the series. But captain Ryan O’Reilly didn’t cite that as a source of motivation.
“I think we sort of stay away from that stuff,” he said. “We know we’re a very good team and it’s gonna be a very hard series. Again, we’re not getting ahead of ourselves. Gonna take it one game at a time and go from there.”
All signs point to the Blues going with 11 forwards and seven defensemen for the fourth game in a row this postseason. Once again, Scott Perunovich ran the first power play unit during Tuesday’s morning skate at Ball Arena, a pretty clear sign that the Blues are going 11/7.
With the adjustment to Denver’s altitude, shorter shifts for the Blues are important here. Double-shifting forwards on the fourth line with Alexei Toropchenko and Tyler Bozak makes that even more important.
“I gotta watch my changes,” Berube said. “I gotta keep guys going. Because you can’t gas ‘em out, and I gotta just watch and see how guys are doing on the double-shifting part with 11 and 7. I might use a few more guys tonight than I have in the past.”
As you may know, there’s a little bit of a history between Faulk and Colorado’s Nazem Kadri from last year’s playoff series. Kadri knocked Faulk out of Game 2 a year ago, and out of the series, with an illegal check to the head that got him suspended for eight games.
This year, Brayden Schenn fought Kadri in the opening moments of the Blues’ season opener, and Faulk fought him earlywhen the teams met again 12 days later. It was the Blues’ way of telling Kadri they didn’t appreciate his actions in that playoff game.
When asked Tuesday what he thought of Kadri as a player, Faulk didn’t have much to say.
“He’s a good player,” Faulk replied. “There you go.”
So are things settled after the fights earlier this season?
“We’re here to play hockey and play a series, and that’s it,” Faulk said.
O’Reilly hasn’t played for the Avalanche since the 2014-15 series, but you still see an O’Reilly Avalanche jersey every once in a while in these parts.
“It’s a little weird,” O’Reilly said. “This is where my NHL career started. Obviously it was very important for me and had a great time here. . . .It’s always nice to see that people appreciate it.”
The Blues have signed goaltender Vadim Zherenko to a three-year entry level contract. Zherenko, 21, was a seventh-round draft pick by the Blues in 2019.
Playing for Ilves Tampere in Finland’s Liiga, Zherenko was 11-8-11 this past season with a 2.67 goals-against average and a .902 save percentage.
(Blues defenseman prospect Leo Loof also played for Ilves Tampere this season.)
Buchnevich-Thomas-Tarasenko
Projected Avalanche lineup
Nichushkin-MacKinnon-Rantanen
Burakovsky-Compher-Aube-Kubel
Garett Rank was five holes into qualifying for the U.S. Open when notified that he was needed as part of the officiating crew for Tuesday’s Blues-Avalanche game. He will be the third – or standby – referee for the contest.
Steve Kozari, who worked Game 6 of the Blues-Minnesota series, and Chris Lee are the on-ice referees for the game.
Rank was even through five holes at the Pulpit Club in Ontario.
• The Blues had at least one power play goal in each game of the Minnesota series, the first time they’ve done that since a playoff series against San Jose in 2000.
• Colorado’s franchise-record 64 goals by defensemen this season was the most in the NHL in a regular season since 1992-93.
• Cake Makar’s 10 points (three goals, seven assists) was the most ever for an NHL defenseman through four games of a postseason.
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