In St Louis Thursday, the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs had unenviable task of facing off against the Blues as they were debuting their new head coach, Mike Yeo.
The Blues responded to the firing of Ken Hitchcock with a 5-1 rout of the Leafs.
“The guys criticized my tie,” Yeo said . “I thought it was pretty good, but apparently it’s not. According to them I shouldn’t [wear it again].”
WATCH: All Maple Leafs vs. Blues highlights
“Obviously pretty happy, good start,” Yeo said. “A lot to like about the game, and obviously some areas where we were a little bit sketchy at the beginning of the game and Jake [Allen] held us in there and came out strong allowed us to find our game. I thought the second period really in a lot of ways [is] the way our game should look.”
The Blues had issues with complete game efforts from across the bench in the weeks leading up to Hitchcock’s dismissal but Thursday there was a different effort.
Goals came from Paul Stastny, Colton Parayko, Alexander Steen, and Vladimir Tarasenko.
“We have a new coach and new kind of sense of urgency, kind of new life kicked in us,” Stastny said. “We wanted to just compete out there. If we would have lost, I think we just wanted to have a better attitude than in the past. So you wanted to get that win. We wanted to get that win for [Yeo] and it’s jersey retirement night. Those come around once maybe every 10 years if you’re lucky. Somewhere in the back of your mind, if you get the win, you wanted to get five goals for something the Plager family will always remember.”
Jake Allen had a solid game and made 26 Â saves to get the win for Yeo.
“I thought we had a good 10 minutes of the first period and after that they were just better than us and they were faster and more determined,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “They executed better, were on top of us and we weren’t good enough. We didn’t have enough players being good enough. Bottom line is we didn’t get anything going.”
Mitchell Marner was the lone goal scorer for the Leafs.
“Obviously [Wednesday] was a tough day for us. … Obviously we want to win games as fast as possible and we want to win as many as fast as possible, so tonight was a good place to start, but there’s a lot of work to be done, for sure,” St Louis’ Colton Parayko said after the win.
Frederik Andersen made 26 saves in taking the loss.
“Whenever an event like that happens it’s gut-check time for everyone, a fresh start for everyone. It brings out the best in guys,” the Leafs’ James van Riemsdyk commented on the changes in St Louis this week.
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