Heroes & Zeros

Before the Blues' offer sheet of Holloway and Broberg shook the NHL scene this offseason, the Blues biggest pickup was Texier from the Blue Jackets. Obviously there was something Armstrong saw in him that he liked, and with Saad being gone he made clear that he would like to see more of what the young forward can do.

After being a healthy scratch for a good portion of games as of late, Texier has been given a real chance on the top lines and he has taken advantage of it. He has been playing consistently good shifts and he was rewarded in this game with the first goal of the game, and the lone goal for either team through the first 45 minutes.

While admittedly putting our two scorers as the first heroes of the game feels lazy, what Kyrou did in this game should not be ignored. He continued his recent high quality play reunited on a line with Buch and Thomas, and scored yet another incredibly important goal for the Blues with what would be the game winner halfway through the third.

Kyrou gets a lot of unnecessary criticism from fans, something I will never understand. He has continued to grow as a full, well rounded player and continues to put up huge numbers as the current leader for the team in goals and points.

Robert, welcome back; you have been sorely missed. The Blues' All Star had been through the worst two week stretch of his career before this game, and it isn't a coincidence that the Blues have dropped almost every game during that stretch.

Despite being a game time decision due to the flu, RobThom put up an incredible performance, consistently being the driving force in an offense that really needed a spark. He made everyone on the ice with him better, and capped the performance off with a seriously beautiful pass to Jordan Kyrou for the go ahead game winning goal late in the third. Hopefully this recent funk is behind him and we get this Thomas from here on out - we need him.

While Justin Faulk did have some good moments in this game, once again he was the weak link in both our defense and our Power Play unit. Faulk does have offensive upside, but he notably caused a turnover on a man advantage that almost lost the game with a short-handed goal against. Thankfully, Binnington was able to bail him out but Faulk really needs to be better on our special teams units if we want any hope of improving our abyssmal PP and PK numbers.

In an attempt to get Buch and Thomas going, Monty reunited the Kyrou-Buchnevich-Thomas line for this game. While this was successful in waking up Robert Thomas, Buchnevich continued to struggle. He was indecisive, handled the puck poorly, and lost most of his 50/50s. It is so unlike Buchy to be this hesitant with the puck, which does make me wonder if something else is going on that we aren't aware of. Regardless, I hope he can be revived by the line changes in the coming games, we could really use his scoring abilities in the final couple months of the season.