VIDEO: Ducks Can’t Slow Down The Blues

Photo: USA Today

By Michael Walters

The Anaheim Ducks continued their road trip in St. Louis against the Blues. In an odd bit of scheduling, the Ducks will play the Blues in back-to-back games on the road. John Gibson was in net against Jordan Binnington.

Recap

Adam Henrique was called for a delay of game penalty as he shot a puck over the glass just 12 seconds into the game. The Ducks were able to kill off the penalty.

The Blues would strike first in this contest just over halfway into the opening period. Noel Acciari would redirect a point shot past Gibson for the early 1-0 lead. St. Louis then made it 2-0 as Pavel Buchnevich would bury a shot from the slot.

Anaheim was down 2-0 after the opening 20 minutes and were out shot 16 to 5.

St. Louis would extend their lead to 3-0 in the beginning of the second period. Buchnevich got a pass down low at the side of the net and backhanded it past Gibson for the score.

Shortly afterward the Ducks had a solid chance to score, but the Blues came back down the ice and Brayden Schenn would score to make it 4-0 blues.

Anaheim would get a power play and Cam Fowler would score on a point shot to break up the shutout bid by the Blues. St. Louis would then answer back with a power play goal of their own by Torey Krug about two minutes later. The Ducks found themselves down 5-1 after two periods of play.

Anthony Stolarz replaced Gibson for the start of the third period. The Ducks would get on the board again during a power play. In a similar looking play to the Ducks first goal, Fowler took a point shot at the net that resulted in a goal, but Henrique scored as he deflected it at the last moment.

The Blues added one last goal by Robert Thomas to make it 6-2. Sam Carrick and Tyler Tucker decided to drop the gloves with less than 5 seconds to go in the game.

Analysis:

The Ducks got off to a rough start and could never recover. Despite only having five shots on goal in the first period, Gibson kept them in striking distance by only being down by two goals. The Ducks could have been down by three or four goals in the opening period. But the defensive problems continued in the second period as they gave up two more goals in less than five minutes of play. The Blues eventually were up 5-1 and then cruised to victory.

The final stat lines don’t look as bad as the score board, but that’s also because the Blues already had a big lead in the third period. The Blues held a 34-32 shot on goal advantage and the Ducks had the edge in the face-off circle winning 52% of the draws. The one bright spot for the Ducks was the power play where they were able to score twice with the man advantage.

Anaheim will have a chance to quickly redeem themselves as they will face this St. Louis team again tomorrow. The Ducks are going to need a much better to start or things could again get ugly fast.

Team Notes/News:

Kevin Shattenkirk was activated off the IR, but did not play.

Drew Helleson was reassigned to San Diego.

What’s Next?

Ducks battle the Blues again tomorrow at 5 PM.

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November 19th, 2022