Submitted by admin on Fri, 2006-11-17 08:00. ::
Saying before the game that he wants his forwards to score, his leaders to lead and his veterans to stay out of the penalty box, Blues President John Davidson saw none of it from his team against the Oilers.
Davidson says that he's not going to overreact while responding to the current mess, but with a team that sprinkles in a good performance in the middle of five bad ones, the president's patience has to be wearing thin.
The destruction is widespread: from Doug Weight, who is still without a goal through 18 games, to Martin Rucinsky, who can't keep his stick down, to Manny Legace, who was pulled again Thursday.
Legace said he was kicked in the head on the first goal, lost his bearings and that had a "snowball effect." He allowed four goals on 15 shots, and now in his last two starts he has surrendered eight goals on 36 shots.
"The last start I didn't think I was playing bad when I got pulled," Legace said. "But now it seems like I'm going one way and the puck is going the other way."
Despite having the eighth-worst power-play unit in the NHL, Edmonton was four for 10 with the man-advantage Thursday. Ryan Smyth, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Joffrey Lupul and Fernando Pisani each scored on the power play.
The Blues can't find their way to the net — Tkachuk and Ryan Johnson did manage to score Thursday — but they continue to prove they know the route to the penalty box.
Hooking. Slashing. High-sticking. Whatever. On Thursday, eight players were whistled for one reason or another, including veterans Tkachuk and Rucinsky. The Blues have committed six or more minor penalties in their past five games.
Jay McClement had two hooking penalties in the first 11 minutes 10 seconds Thursday. He spent 2:58 in the box and only 2:46 on the ice in the first period.
Five seconds after McClement took his second hooking call, Johnson slashed the stick of Smyth, breaking it in half. Smyth took advantage on the 5-on-3 power play, making it 3-0 with 7:52 left in the first period.
Early in the second period, Radek Dvorak put the Oilers back on the power play with a tripping penalty, and Lupul made it 4-0. It appeared Lupul had a contagious virus the Blues didn't want to catch as he waltzed in and beat Legace, ending the goalie's night.
In a first-round playoff series against Edmonton, Legace was 2-4 with a 2.65 goals-against average and an .844 save percentage. Combining that postseason and Thursday night's game, he has allowed 22 goals on 170 shots against the Oilers.
"I think Manny's fighting the puck, just like everyone else," Kitchen said. "We're all fighting the puck right now. We're squeezing the stick. We're not getting too many breaks, and that's why we're spending most of the game in the penalty box. We become very undisciplined."
Added Tkachuk: "There's a heck of a lot of nothing out there. Everything you could possibly do bad, we did. The bottom line is we lost and I'm not going to get into why we lost."
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