Heroes & Zeros

Binnington has been inconsistent for a few months; and while that was something you could see in this game, he was absolutely one of the positives coming out of the night. After letting in one he likely would want back and a PPG he had no chance at, Binner locked down the net and didnt allow another Stars goal for the remainder of the game despite Dallas being allowed more than a few good chances. He gave our team more than 50 minutes to get back into this one, but they just couldn't get it done despite his performance.

While still not being able to find the back of the net, Buchnevich played a much better game against the Stars on the offensive end. He had multiple good chances as a reward for going to the front of the net, set up teammates multiple times for open shots, and put pressure in the offensive zone all night long to help give the team a chance to claw back into it. While no one is thrilled with the team performance in this one, if Buchy can continue his play from this matchup the goals will start flowing again.

Mathieu Joseph has been floating between healthy scratch and 4th liner for a few months, and hopefully some other guys will get a shot at playing over Joseph after his recent performances. He's been incredibly easy to miss on the ice, and this game was not an exception - apart from one big moment. With just over 6 minutes left, Joseph had a tip in opportunity on a wide open net behind DeSmith on a beautiful set up from Robert Thomas. He sent the puck wide, keeping the game out of reach and dooming the Blues for their first shutout of the season.

I recognize that I'm beating a dead horse once again, but in yet another game Oskar Sundqvist stood out as a weak point in the Blues roster. His shortcomings on the ice are well documented and discussed, but what I feel magnifies these issues is related to coaching. Monty has been a huge improvement for St. Louis, but his continued choice to put Sunny on the PP1 is something I am struggling to understand. He has yet to produce in this spot, and sometimes causes our setup due to collapse due to bad puck handling.

Justin Faulk once again finds himself on the Zeros list. He actually had some good defensive playing during the middle 30 of the game to keep the hole the Blues dug themselves as shallow as possible. However, for a defenseman that is renowned for his offensive upside, Faulk really hurt the team's chances in the third period as he allowed multiple pucks to slide past him and out of the offensive zone right as they were getting a good cycle going. Every time this happened, the Blues would be forced to try to reenter the zone as valuable game time ticked all the way down to 0.