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Stanley Cup Playoffs 2020: Five reasons the Blues were eliminated by the Canucks – CBS Sports

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Highlights: Blues vs Canucks
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The St. Louis Blues‘ bubble has been popped. 

After narrowly finishing the regular season as the Western Conference’s top squad, the defending Stanley Cup champions’ title defense lasted just six playoff games. The Blues were eliminated in the first round at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks, who picked up their first postseason series win since 2011. 

It’s a disappointing finish to the season for St. Louis and now we’re guaranteed to see a new team raise the Stanley Cup in 2020. So, why are the Blues going home this early? Let’s take a look at where things went wrong. 

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Sloppy play & turnovers

Simply put, the Blues never really looked quite right upon returning to action following the COVID-19 shutdown. They weren’t the same hard-nosed, tight, disciplined team that we’d come to know since Craig Berube took over last season. Instead, they had far too many mental lapses and regularly turned the puck over — often times in highly dangerous areas. 

They did stuff like this:

Credit goes to Vancouver for being able to finish their opportunities, but it felt like about three-quarters of the goals that they scored in this series came as the direct result of St. Louis just giving them the puck.

Overall,  it was just a pretty embarrassing showing from a Blues team that we all know is capable of much better. They were consistently outplayed and outworked by arguably and inferior team that was more than willing to feed them their lunch. 

Lack of discipline

When the Blues’ sloppiness didn’t immediately translate into a Vancouver goal, it often translated into a Vancouver power play … which then quickly translated into a Vancouver goal. St. Louis, which finished the regular season as the fourth-least penalized team in the league, put the Canucks on the power play 23 times over the course of the series. Considering Vancouver had a top five power play in the league this season, the results were bad for the Blues.

Again, the Canucks did well to take advantage of the opportunities that were given to them. They scored seven times on the man-advantage, with most of that damage coming from their extremely dangerous top PP unit featuring Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Bo Horvat, Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller.

Coming into this series, I expected a relatively inexperienced (and oft undisciplined) Canucks team to be the side that made too many mistakes and committed too many costly penalties. In reality, it was the opposite.

Coaching

We’ve seen it so many times in the past. The Blues are a much different (and much more dangerous) team when Ryan O’Reilly is at his best. At the front end of this series, O’Reilly’s line was dominant in terms of controlling possession and limiting the opportunities for the top competition it matched against.

Finally, that dominance helped St. Louis find wins in Games 3 and 4. In the Blues’ Game 3 win, O’Reilly’s line controlled an absolutely staggering 80 percent of shots (24-6) and attempts (39-10) at five-on-five. They also scored twice, including the overtime winner. In Game 4, O’Reilly’s line controlled 67 percent of attempts, 71 percent of shots and scored once while shutting out the opposition.

But Travis Green did well to find spots for his top players (namely Elias Pettersson) away from O’Reilly at five-on-five and it paid dividends. And Green’s willingness and ability to juggle his forward lines ultimately helped stop the bleeding and allowed Vancouver to get back on the right track in Games 5 and 6. Jake Virtanen’s selective (and somewhat surprising) deployment worked to help Vancouver play a bit heavier and injected a bit of juice into the front end of the Canucks’ lineup over the final few games.

It can’t be overstated how important it is for coaches to make adjustments over the course of a best-of-7 series, and Green did a fantastic job reacting to what he saw and switching things up in order to poke holes in the Blues’ gameplan.

Goaltending

It’s hard to pin a ton of blame on goaltending considering how poorly the Blues played in front of their own net, but those mistakes and turnovers are only compounded when your goalie isn’t saving stoppable pucks. There’s no way around it, Jordan Binnington looked like a shell of the guy we saw last postseason.

Binnington lost all three of his starts and went 52-for-65 on shots faced, giving him a putrid .800 save percentage in those three games.

St. Louis understandably went to Jake Allen, who helped right the ship in Games 3 and 4. He went 92-for-100 in the series but did have his leaky moments too.

Overall, the goaltending wasn’t St. Louis’ biggest problem, but it certainly didn’t do them any favors, either.

No secondary scoring

One of the Blues’ strengths last year was their ability to roll four lines and get significant contributions (on both ends of the ice) from top to bottom. That sort of depth is often the difference-maker for teams trying to make deep playoff runs. 

St. Louis just didn’t get those contributions this time around. When you look at the production they received in this series, almost all of it lies at the top of their lineup. O’Reilly, Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn and David Perron accounted for pretty much all of their scoring at even strength. Only one goal came from a forward outside of the top six (Sammy Blais). 

It also doesn’t help that the Blues, who got more goals from defensemen than any other team in the regular season, had just one five-on-five goal from a defenseman (Justin Faulk) in this series. Vancouver’s bottom six wiped the floor with the Blues’ over these six games, and that’s something few probably saw coming.

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Allen on trade to Devils from Habs: 'Sometimes you've got to be a little bit selfish' – Yahoo Canada Sports

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Jake Allen loved being a member of the Montreal Canadiens.

The hockey-mad market, the crackling Bell Centre on a Saturday night, the Original Six franchise’s iconic logo.

The 33-year-old goaltender is also realistic.

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With the Canadiens still in full rebuild mode — and two young netminders in Sam Montembeault and Cayden Primeau ready for more playing time — Allen could see the writing on the wall.

Desperate for help in their own crease, the New Jersey Devils asked Montreal about the veteran’s availability. But the team, general manager Tom Fitzgerald told reporters earlier this month, was initially on Allen’s no-trade list.

There wasn’t anything the Fredericton product disliked about the organization or city. The Devils simply appeared to have their crease set for years to come.

But when the club that finished with 112 points and made the second round of the playoffs in 2022-23 was badly hampered by poor play from Vitek Vanecek, Nico Daws and Akira Schmid — each netminder owned save percentages below .900 — the Devils circled back.

And Allen had changed his tune.

“Loved my time as a Hab,” he said of pulling on Montreal’s red, white and blue threads. “I always will cherish that. Put on probably the most special jersey in hockey, in my books. But you realize in your career, it doesn’t last forever.

“You’ve got to make decisions sometimes.”

Allen, who is signed through next season, eventually agreed to a deal that sent him to New Jersey ahead of the NHL’s March 8 trade deadline for a conditional third-round pick at the 2025 draft.

Apart from playing meaningful hockey on a team trying to claw its way back into the Eastern Conference playoff race, the swap gave him more runway to get his family settled in a new city instead of waiting to see what this summer’s crowded goalie market might bring.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit selfish,” said Allen, a Stanley Cup champion with the St. Louis Blues in 2019. “Look yourself in the mirror and wonder what’s best for you and your family.”

He’s been really good for his new team.

Allen was lights out in Tuesday’s first period against the Toronto Maple Leafs, making an eye-popping 25 saves in what would turn into New Jersey’s 6-3 victory.

So far he’s 4-2-0 with a .925 save percentage and a 2.51 goals against average in six starts for the Devils, who sit five points back of the East’s second wild-card spot.

“A real pro,” said interim head coach Travis Green.

Allen is a combined 10-14-3 in 2023-24 with a .900 save percentage and a 3.39 GAA. Across his 11 seasons with St. Louis, Montreal and now New Jersey, he’s 193-164-41 with a .908 save percentage and 2.75 GAA.

“Makes the saves we need to get some momentum back,” Devils captain Nico Hischier said. “If you have a solid goalie in the net, that makes your work easier.”

Allen is also 11-12 with a .924 and a 2.06 GAA all-time in the playoffs — a good sign for his new club should New Jersey manage to make the cut.

For now, though, he’s just enjoying being back in a post-season race.

“I thought this was a good opportunity to come in the rest of this year, play some games,” Allen said.

“It’s been a good start.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2024.

___

Follow @JClipperton_CP on X.

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press

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Matthews game-time decision for Maple Leafs against Capitals with illness – NHL.com

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TORONTOAuston Matthews will be a game-time decision for the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Washington Capitals at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, MNMT) because of an illness.

“It’s going to be on how he feels throughout the day,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said.

The forward did not participate in Toronto’s morning skate. Max Domi took his place as the center on a line between Tyler Bertuzzi and Mitch Marner, a right wing recovering from a high-ankle sprain sustained March 7 and will be out the next two games.

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Matthews leads the NHL with 59 goals, one from becoming the ninth player in NHL history with at least two 60-goal seasons. He scored 60 in 73 games in 2021-22, when he won the Rocket Richard Trophy, Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award. He had one goal and nine shots in 23:44 of a 6-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday, which extended his point streak to five games (four goals, seven assists).

He missed one game this season with illness, a 7-0 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 16.

“Of course, it’s an adjustment when your best player is out of the lineup,” Domi said, “when anybody is out of the lineup, but I think we’ve done a great job all year of guys stepping up when they have to, and we just have to continue to do that.”

Toronto defenseman Morgan Rielly will miss his second straight game with an upper-body injury.

“He just remains day to day,” Keefe said. “We’re hopeful he’s going to bounce back here. The one thing that is good is once he gets through this day or two here, it’s not going to be a lingering situation. It’s not going to be an injury that’s ongoing. Once he’s past it, he’s past it so we just need to give him some time.”

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Canucks place goalie Thatcher Demko on long-term injured list

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The Vancouver Canucks have placed all-star goalie Thatcher Demko on the long-term injured reserve list retroactively.

“It’s just cap related,” coach Rick Tocchet said after practice Wednesday. “We get some cap relief, that’s all it is.”

The 28-year-old netminder has been considered week to week since being sidelined with a lower-body injury midway through Vancouver’s 5-0 win over the Winnipeg Jets on March 9.

That injury designation hasn’t changed, Tocchet said.

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Demko boasts a 34-18-2 record this season, with a .917 save percentage, a 2.47 goals-against average and five shutouts.

Casey DeSmith has taken over the starting job for Vancouver, going 3-2-1 since Demko’s injury. He has a .899 save percentage on the season with a 2.73 goals-against average and one shutout.

The earliest Demko could be back in the Canucks’ lineup is April 6 against the Kings in Los Angeles.

He’s expected to be a key piece as Vancouver (45-19-8) prepares for its first playoff appearance since the COVID-shortened 2019-20 campaign.

Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin also announced Wednesday that the club has called up forward Arshdeep Bains from the Abbotsford Canucks of the American Hockey League.

“I’d like to see where [Bains is] at,” Tocchet said, noting he isn’t sure whether the 23-year-old winger will slot into the lineup when the Canucks host the Dallas Stars on Thursday.

WATCH | Bains makes NHL debut

 

Surrey, B.C.’s Arshdeep Bains makes Canucks debut

1 month ago

Duration 2:20

Arshdeep Bains from Surrey, B.C., has made his NHL debut with the Vancouver Canucks Tuesday night against the Colorado Avalanche. As CBC’s Joel Ballard reports, it’s been a hard-fought journey for the hometown kid to the big leagues.

Bains played five games for the NHL team in February before being sent back to Abbotsford.

“He went down, he’s done a couple of things that we like, and he’s got some speed,” Tocchet said.

Vancouver may get another forward back in the lineup Thursday.

Dakota Joshua practised in a full-contact jersey on Wednesday for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury in Vancouver’s 4-2 win over the Blackhawks in Chicago on Feb. 13.

The physical winger, who’s set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, has a career-high 26 points (13 goals, 13 assists) this season.

Sitting out injured “hasn’t been fun,” Joshua said.

“It feels like forever,” he said. “But at this point, that’s behind me and I’m moving forward.”

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