In St Louis Friday, the Blues broke out of the Anaheim forecheck in the third period and Jori Lehtera and Patrik Berglund scored goals 64 seconds apart to send the Blues to a 5-2 win.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored twice in win over Ducks – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“I thought both teams really struggled against the other team’s forecheck,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “I thought we had some really good shifts in the first period on our forecheck and obviously we scored three goals [in the third period] because of it. They put the heat on us too. They come at you with a lot of speed, a lot of size. They come at you really hard.”
Vladimir Tarasenko scored twice and Paul Stastny added a goal for St Louis.
“Like I said before, we have a lot of lessons this year,” Tarasenko said. “Some of them [were] really bad, some of them [were] really good. We need to decide what’s wrong and look moving forward. … We’re happy to get these two points. It’s really important for us.”
After posting 14 straight games with a point, the Ducks have lost two straight in regulation and three in a row overall.
“We give them two shots right from the start [in the third period],” Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “It’s tough. They’re a good team, but we can’t make those defensive mistakes. We haven’t in a long time and you would like to say those things happen and we haven’t seen them happen. We don’t want to see them happen anymore.”
Ryan Getzlaf and Rickard Rakell scored for the Ducks.
“You go up 1-0 on the road, you feel like you put yourself in a good position to win and I made a bad defensive play on that goal to make it 1-1,” Anaheim’s Cam Fowler said. “I lost my guy in coverage, but still heading into the third, you have a 1-1 game. We’ll take that 100 times out of 100. Breakdowns [are] what cost us the game. We were in position to win, so that’s why it’s a tough one.”
The Blues are within one point of the top spot in the division, the Dallas Starts who beat the Chicago Blackhawks Friday night.
“With everything we’ve gone through, we wake up tomorrow morning in a hockey game for first place,” Hitchcock said. “Nobody would have thought of that because everything these guys have been through. That’s been a feather in their cap. This is 3-0 against top teams, a chance to go 4-0 tomorrow. A tough opponent, but pretty impressive that we’ve been able to maintain a competitive level despite missing key guys all year.”
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