The Dallas Stars only beat the St. Louis Blues by one goal (2-1) in Game 1, but the feeling is that the score was deceptively close.
Blame it on fatigue from that epic series against the Chicago Blackhawks or not; the Blues looked out of rhythm and out of breath against the hard-charging Stars.
At least they’re not in denial about that, though.
“We’re not going to beat anybody giving up 40 shots on goal,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after their Game 1 loss on Friday. “We’re not going to beat anybody giving up the scoring chances we did today.”
Hitchcock added “we’ve got to find the energy to play our game, and we’ve got to find it quickly in the next 48 hours.”
Allowing 40 shots on goal might not be that common for the Blues, yet they leaned heavily on Brian Elliott against the Blackhawks in that series.
Just look at the SOG comparison in that series and in Game 1 vs. Dallas:
Game 1: Blues - 18 SOG, Blackhawks - 35
Game 2: Blues - 31, Blackhawks - 29
Game 3: Blues - 36, Blackhawks - 46
Game 4: Blues - 20, Blackhawks - 42
Game 5: Blues - 46, Blackhawks - 35
Game 6: Blues - 28, Blachawks - 36
Game 7: Blues - 26, Blackhawks - 33
Game 1: Blues - 32, Stars - 42
Such shot comparisons make you wonder if Game 1 provided evidence of a rest advantage or if this might just be the state of affairs for the Blues (at least against two electric offenses).
One area to watch is the transition game. The Stars seemed to tear through the neutral zone while the Blues sometimes struggled to get things going.
“They’re a team that wants to play real fast up the ice and through the neutral zone,” Jay Bouwmeester said, via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Yeah, we didn’t do a very good job of slowing them down. A lot of their chances were off the rush. That’s what you want to take away from them.”
File that under “easier said than done.”