Three Takeaways From Blues' 6-2 Win Against Ducks

ST. LOUIS – This was exactly the kind of response the St. Louis Blues needed to begin a four-game homestand on Thursday, a stretch of 14 of the next 19 home games if they want to make a surge, or push, and remain relevant in the Western Conference.

Their 6-2 dismantling of the Anaheim Ducks was the kind of start they had to have and put forth a solid starting point to a streak of games the Blues (20-19-4) have to put together if they are to remain in this playoff push.

Their best players were their best players, with Robert Thomas scoring twice, Pavel Buchnevich adding a goal and two assists, Jordan Kyrou having a goal and an assist to give him 300 NHL points (133 goals, 167 assists), Brayden Schenn adding a pair of assists and Dylan Holloway remaining scorching with a goal to give him 13 points (five goals, eight assists) the past eight games.

Joel Hofer, after a rough outing last Saturday in a 6-4 loss against the Columbus Blue Jackets, got back to winning ways with 22 saves, giving him six wins (6-1-1) his past eight starts.

Let’s take a look at tonight’s Three Takeaways:

* Blues backed Montgomery up by being ready to rock – Blues coach Jim Montgomery came up to his morning skate press conference and said, “I hope everyone has cabin fever from being snowed in here for 3-4 days with the ice storm. The Blues are going to be ready to rock tonight. My ask from our fans tonight is be ready to rock from puck drop."

The players got the message, even though there was no message at that point intended for them because it was already delivered to them.

And the Blues responded by scoring three times in the game’s first 6:40, they scored the first four goals in the first period and their three goals came before the Ducks (17-19-5) had their first shot on goal.

“We were, right from the puck drop,” Montgomery said. ‘I liked our intensity. I liked our execution, and I liked how hard we were offensively.”

It started with Thomas taking advantage of a Jacob Trouba giveaway that led to Thomas being in the right spot and quickly beating Lukas Dostal 2:45 into the game:

Tyler Tucker’s first of the season made it 2-0 at 4:31 when the third line of Oskar Sundqvist, Zack Bolduc and Jake Neighbours went to work, with Bolduc dumping a puck into the corner, Sundqvist getting in on the forecheck and retrieving the puck, finding Tucker at the point and using a screen in front to beat Dostal:

Then Kyrou made it 3-0 at 6:40 when he drove the net and followed up Cam Fowler’s puck thrown at the net:

Fowler, who was honored before the game for 1,000 NHL games, faced the Ducks for the first time since the Dec. 14 trade to St. Louis, played 991 of his games with Anaheim.

At that point, the Blues were outshooting the Ducks 8-0 and outscoring them 3-0.

“Just being ready to play,” Schenn said. “We got a bounce early and ‘Tommer’s able to capitalize. It’s not easy to come from West to East. We just faced that not too long ago and obviously they got off to a slow start and we were able to capitalize the right way and get rewarded with goals.”

Holloway and Kyrou combined for the fourth goal at 13:55 to make it 4-0, another good play where the Blues entered the zone and made good, smart decisions with the puck. Kyrou was able to retrieve it behind the net and find Holloway neat the left hash marks:

“I think it was a combination of forwards and D-men working together,” Montgomery said. “We asked our defensemen to be aggressive holding the offensive zone, pinching pucks on walls. I thought they did that and I thought we had real good depth by our forwards and they were working back so our D-men felt really aggressive being able to do that, and I thought that extended our O-zone time besides the puck possession that we had.”

* Thomas line atoned for poor game in Minnesota – Thomas, Buchnevich and Brandon Saad, playing in his 900th NHL game, were a combined minus-10 in the 6-4 loss against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, a bitter loss the Blues will come to regret should they miss the playoffs after blowing a 4-2 lead midway through the game.

That line set the tone early, and it finished with three goals, two assists and a plus-2.

“The Thomas line was a minus line the last game and now they came out and they had two big goals,” Montgomery said. “They had the first one, which was a real good checking goal and they had that one that kind of made it go from 4-1 to 5-1 that kind of really popped the air in the balloon of the game. So that was really good, but again, we’re searching for the consistency. Now we’ve got to keep building and just keep building and doing it right over and over.”

At 4-1, Thomas really put the game out of reach with an effort goal after Buchnevich laid a pass in stride. Dostal, who was pulled after allowing six goals on 22 shots, made the initial save, but Thomas stayed with it and beat Dostal from a sharp angle at 4:45 of the second period:

And then Buchnevich, who has seven points (two goals, five assists) in a five-game point streak, did an interchange with Saad and powered to the net before scoring at 8:02 to make it 6-1:

* Blues blazing on offense – Thursday marks the fifth straight game the Blues have scored four or more goals, scoring 24 in total, and seven time in eight games scoring four or more (37 goals, 4.6 per game).

Can it last? Probably not, but the way they’re doing it is by committee and if they can hone in on the defensive responsibilities and get some goaltending from Hofer and Jordan Binnington, a run is perhaps attainable.

“I think it all comes down to playing the right way,” Holloway said. ‘I know that’s kind of a cliché, but for us, it’s getting pucks deep and then going to work low because I feel like any time you try and make too many east-west passes in the neutral zone or going over the blue line, sometimes it works, but consistently it doesn’t. I think the biggest things for us is keep grinding teams down low, get pucks to the net and then winning our battles.”

Schenn added, “Defending better, playing the right way, working hard, coming up with puck battles, the little details. That’s where you score goals in this league. It’s always easy to say we’ve got to score more, but you have to change something to score more. I feel like we’re doing a lot of good things away from the puck that’s resulting in us scoring goals and guys are obviously more confident. Confidence is obviously huge. When guys get rewarded, you’re able to see the next play a little bit better and it’s happening right now.”