Three Takeaways From Blues’ 3-2 Shootout Win Against Kings

Well, the St. Louis Blues have completed their set of games leading into the NHL Trade Deadline on Friday.

Now what?

That will be the question Doug Armstrong and the rest of the management team will have top decide after the Blues took down the Los Angeles Kings for the second time in five days, 3-2 in a shootout, at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday.

The Blues (30-27-6), who are 6-1-1 their past eight games and playing their best hockey of the season, are one point behind the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks for the second wild card in the Western Conference, but the Flames and Canucks have games in hand.

Nonetheless, the Blues are right there with 19 games remaining, and now the question is will they offload, add or simply stand pat and ride this out with the current group?

On Wednesday, Jake Neighbours and Robert Thomas each scored in regulation and had shootout goals, while Jordan Binnington didn’t face a ton of traffic and shots but was clutch when called upon making 21 saves.

Thomas, who now has an 11-game poiint streak (five goals, 10 assists) won the shootout in the third round.

This, on the heels of the Blues downing the Kings 4-1 at home on Saturday; they will play in L.A. again on Saturday.

Let’s get into Wednesday’s Three Takeaways:

* Neighbours-Thomas-Buchnevich line outstanding again — Whatever Thomas, Neighbours and Pavel Buchnevich conjured up to propel themselves to prosperity continues to work.

Not only did Neighbours and Thomas each score, and score shootout goals, but the line was effectively strong each time the line was on the ice.

According to naturalstattrick.com, the line had a Corsi-for/Corsi-against of 19-9, a Fenwick-for/Fenwick-against of 13-5; the trio had scoring chances-for/against of 12-4 and high-danger Corsi-for/against of 5-1.

The Blues were getting so much weight carried by the Dylan Holloway-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou line for so long that the Thomas line was so inconsistent through January and the early part of February, coach Jim Montgomery was trying to find a third wheel to go with Thomas and Buchnevich. When Neighbours played there earlier in the season, it proved to be an inconsistent line.

Neighbours opened the scoring at 18:50 of the first period when he took a Colton Parayko pass, raced up the right side and appeared like he wanted to move the puck to Buchnevich, but when the lane was sealed off, he backhanded a shot that glanced off the left arm of Darcy Kuemper and in:

And after the Blues fell behind 2-1 in the second period on a lucky goal by Trevor Moore midway through, Thomas came up with a clutch power-play goal on the Blues’ fourth opportunity at 19:13 of the second off a nice sauce feed from Buchnevich, who has 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in his past eight games:

Had it not been for Kuemper, the line could have accounted for at least a couple more goals. But it’s a good sign now that for seven games playing together post 4 Nations Face-Off break, the line has 19 points (nine goals, 10 assists).

* Binnington clutch — Jordan Binnington didn’t get a ton of work in this game. In fact, he saw single-digit shots on goal in each of the three periods.

But even though he only saw 23 shots against in this game, there were a number of key saves he had to make.

Let’s start with the save on Warren Foegele coming down the slot in the second period when the game was 1-1. He faced only six shots in the third period, but he closed the door on a redirection by Adrian Kempe that would have given L.A. the lead.

And then there’s the overtime, when games can turn into a gong show, and the Kings had four shots on goal, and Binnington had to come up big on each one, including two breakaway stops on Philip Danault and one on Moore’s last-ditch effort when the Blues won an offensive zone face-off and Colton Parayko slipped and fell at the point enabling the Kings to get a last chance at a winner.

Binnington, who is 6-0-1 in his past seven starts with a 2.24 goals-against average and .921 save percentage, then made saves on Kempe and Moore in the shootout before Kevin Fiala scored in the third round, but is now 16 of 19 in shootout attempts this season.

* Defense limiting L.A.’s high-danger looks — When the Kings are on, they utilize their big, strong, powerful bodies to cycle, forecheck and wear teams down in the offensive zone.

Once again, the Blues limited those opportunities.

Holding L.A. to 19 shots on goal through regulation was a case of clogging up the middle of the ice and protecting the slot areas and crease.

Los Angeles’ two goals came from a terrific shot by Quinton Byfield, although it came 32 seconds after the Neighbours goal and could have offered a bit more resistance and Moore’s goal did come off a sustained zone stretch but a puck off the boards that Binnington lost track of and snuck by his skate and inside the shortside post.

But for the most part, the Blues did a good job of puck possessing it themselves and not giving the Kings time and space in the offensive zone.

* See what coach Jim Montgomery and players had to say postgame: