The St. Louis Blues likely don’t wish to play past regulation on Saturday against the Florida Panthers in Sunrise, Fla.
The Blues, after all, are 0-6 in overtime and 0-2 in shootouts.
St. Louis’ most recent overtime loss happened on Thursday night in a 2-1 setback to the New York Rangers.
“We’re getting a lot of possession time in overtime,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “But we’re not creating enough (quality) chances. Then, when we turn the puck over, we’re blowing coverage.
“It’s man-on-man. It should be fairly simple to stay with your man when it’s 3-on-3 instead of 5-on-5. But we’re getting beat to the net. We’re losing assignments.”
Center Robert Thomas leads the Blues in assists (17) and points (24), but no St. Louis player yet has reached double figures in goals. Thomas has seven goals — three of which have come on the power play.
Winger Jake Neighbours leads the Blues with eight even-strength goals.
Veteran Blues goalie Jordan Binnington is 7-8-6 with a 3.41 goals-against average. It’s the highest GAA in his eighth NHL season. His career GAA is 2.81
Binnington was brilliant in 2018-19, when the Blues won their only Stanley Cup title. He went 24-5-1 with a league-best 1.89 GAA that season.
Meanwhile, the Panthers are 2-1 in shootouts and 1-1 in overtime this season. In fact, the Panthers beat the visiting Carolina Hurricanes, 4-3, in a shootout on Friday night.
It was the first time in team history that the Panthers won despite trailing 3-0 with less than 10 minutes remaining.
“I was pretty grumpy there with 10 minutes left,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “We just needed one good thing to go. … (Brad Marchand) as he always does, we’re down three, and he’s screaming, ‘We can do this!’ And he scores the first one. That was really the big one, gave us some life.”
Said Marchand: “We didn’t have the start that we expected. The guys that play a lot of minutes, it’s up to us to step up and produce.”
Marchand’s scored his 20th goal of the season, Sam Reinhart added his 18th and Sam Bennett notched his 12th.
They are Florida’s top three goal-scorers this season, and they are a big reason why the Panthers can rally like they did on Friday.
“We have a lot of players with big-game experience,” Bennett said. “There’s a lot of composure (in those situations). There’s no panic. Everyone is positive on our bench.”
Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who made 26 saves to earn the win on Friday, improved his record to 15-8-1 on the season.
With games on consecutive nights, there’s a good chance Bobrovsky will be rested on Saturday. In that scenario, Daniil Tarasov (4-5-1, 2.76 GAA) would get the start.
The Panthers, after a slow start this season, are 7-1-0 over their past eight games as they attempt to reach the playoffs for the seventh straight year and, ultimately, win their third consecutive Stanley Cup championship.
“Everyone is feeling good right now,” Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues said. “We’re enjoying hockey.”
–Field Level Media
