St. Louis Blues Special Teams The Star On First Night Of The Playoffs
The first night of the 2021-2022 NHL playoffs was filled with plenty of excitement and surprises. For example, who had the Tampa Bay Lightning getting shut out by the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-0? If there was anyone who stole the spotlight on the first night for the quest for the Stanley Cup, it was the St. Louis Blues penalty kill.
The first star of the game in St. Louis’s 4-0 victory was David Perron, who scored a hat trick, followed by Ville Husso. Husso did his best brick wall impersonation and did keep the Minnesota Wild off the score sheet. If Husso worked hard, St. Louis’ special teams worked harder. The Blues went two for six on the power play, as well as a perfect six for six on the penalty kill.
Even if it’s just one game, those stats mirror what we saw during the regular season. St. Louis had a top-five penalty kill with an 84.1% success rate. For all their offensive weapons, the Wild didn’t make use of the power play. During the regular season, their power play was only successful 20.5% of the time. When Jordan Greenway took a penalty at 15:39 in the second, Minnesota didn’t even have a chance to clear before Perron got his second power-play goal of the game.
The St. Louis Blues special teams was an instrumental factor in their game one victory.
What made St. Louis impressive was the offense they generated shorthanded. In the first period, they drew a penalty shot while playing on the power play after an Ivan Barbashev breakaway. The Blues continued to show sometimes the best defense is an offense with shorthanded scoring chances at the beginning of Minnesota’s last two power plays in the second period (calls against David Perron and Justin Faulk).
A total of 12 power plays were handed out during game one, which seems high for the NHL playoffs. Minnesota coach Dean Evason blamed the loss on “avoidable penalties”.
During last year’s playoffs (the first year of the Kirill Kaprisov era in Minnesota), the Wild had 15 power plays and 22 penalty kills in their seven-game series against the Vegas Golden Knights. For reference, the Blues had 11 power plays and took 15 penalties in their four-game sweep at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche. No game in that series had more than nine penalties taken in total, while no game in the Minnesota vs Las Vegas series had more than nine as well.
The Wild know they need to play better against St. Louis. It was a frustrating night for the Minnesota faithful, yet St. Louis showed their success at the penalty kill in the regular season can carry over in their quest for the Stanley Cup. Does Minnesota still have an advantage at five-on-five scoring? Maybe if they stopped sending players to the penalty box we would have a better idea.