Bad turnover by Berglund, but Halak seriously needs to start hitting the top of the blue and challenging players some in those situations.
No challenging
Slow weak glove
Terrible stickhandling
Does not use his stick as a tool
Slow tracking
Only thing going is a natural talent of knowing where the puck is going. He is only good on high profile games where he faces lots of shots. Otherwise, he cannot produce against low scoring. The continuous repeated errors makes me really dislike him. He is not working to try and better himself like you see Elliott who almost fell out of NHL all together.
Halak has to be able to defend his own net once in awhile and build the confidence from the Blues players. There is reason why Blues players are better when Elliot is in goal.... they trust him to make the save when the game is on the line. Halak cannot do it and the offense drastically suffers as a result.
Gotta love Perron! What class...you could tell he enjoyed giving the puck to Stewart more than if he would have scored it himself. Couldn't ask for a better teammate.
Another epic fail by Brian Engblom. The guy is always bad.
Completely failed to notice that the Berglund turnover ... there's a random stick lying in the middle of the ice and that's what the puck hit. It wasn't some great takeaway. There's a stick there, it's essentially a pokecheck. Bad luck but I won't get on Berglund for that one.
Blues did seem to get all smiley and let up at 4-1. I guess it's progress, as last year they would've choked away this lead and lost the game (and did many times). Now they still win but they can't hold a big edge. Progress.
Another thing. Right now we have a clear #1 goalie and he plays in Detroit tomorrow. You can feel the difference in games. There's a gut tension watching Halak that there isn't when you watch Elliott. Now, with goalies a lot of the time it's confidence and so this can switch, but one guy is better than the other guy. Even during Halak's strong last couple of months, Elliott has still been better.
Also, Steve Ott's a loser. I said it back on page 1 because he's a complete bag of c**k every game he plays.
Yeah, I don't know how these Versus guys were completely blind to the stray stick that caused Berglund to lose the puck. It was hard to tell what happened at full speed but the replay couldn't have made it clearer.
You could tell Stewart was a little irked at the question about "expecting 35-40 goals" during the on-ice interview after the game He handled it well though.
Congrats to Grachev on his first goal. Didn't guess how badly we would need it. Normally I'd be more concerned/frustrated that we failed to put the dagger in them with a 3-goal lead, but this team's 3rd-period play has been such a dramatic improvement over past Blues teams that I'm just happy with the win. Good to finally get that Dallas monkey off our backs too.
Ott is a b****. He waits til the ref intervenes and then sucker punches Jackman twice. I don't know how Jackman got a major out of that, it should've been a major and a misconduct to Ott and roughing for Jackman, since he didn't throw a punch. Ott needs to have his a** handed to him though.
Halak wasn't good tonight, clearly, but he's been good for the most part the last month. He looked a little fragile out there tonight, though, especially in the third.
Was at the game tonight...not quite sure how this ended up being a Halak hate thread. First goal was a bad one, and his rebound control was a bit sketchier than it has been in recent games (didn't factor into the scoring at all, or even the chances really...Blues cleared them all well), but the second and third goals weren't anything to be upset about. Polak was way out of position on the second goal, and completely screened Halak to boot. The third goal Ryder was able to walk right into a prime scoring position on an odd man break off some bad luck (A stick just lying there? Really??). Halak had to respect the toe drag to the middle which Ryder was in the process of pulling off so he couldn't overplay an angle. Ryder just made a hell of a move and shot. Halak had no chance, IMO.
Thought it would be a pretty sloppy game coming off the holiday travel, and it was. Dallas did a great job of pressuring the Blues in the offensive zone, and the Blues breakout/transition play wasn't quite the well-oiled machine it needs to be to handle that sort of pressure flawlessly. Part of that is probably the time off/travel, part of it was the pressure Dallas was applying, and part of it was the new faces/resulting line juggling. For the most part, the Blues weathered it well.
On the other hand, the Blues didn't make any sloppy line changes, did a great job of taking/getting the puck to the net, cleaned up the rebounds well, and generally had the best of the play and the scoring chances. They also didn't play undisciplined hockey, which led to a lot of ES play where their depth gave them a decided advantage. The Blues 3rd and 4th lines played much better for the most part than their counterparts on Dallas.
All in all, a satisfactory game that was better than their last couple of efforts. Grachev looked good on the second line with Berglund and Perron, and Stewart continued building on his own personal turnaround. Cracknell was gifted a goal, but his all-around play was exemplary for what little time he was out there.
Outside of Pietrangelo playing an uncharacteristically sloppy game (especially early, as he settled in nicely as the game went on), I don't think there's too much more to mention off the top of my head.
He handled it well though.
