It took a brief road swing through Western Canada to get the St. Louis Blues on track this season.
After falling to the Minnesota Wild 5-0 in their home opener, the Blues regrouped while winning 4-2 on Saturday at Calgary and 5-2 on Monday at Vancouver. They’re carrying that momentum home for Wednesday’s Central Division showdown with the Chicago Blackhawks.
Blues captain Brayden Schenn felt the turnaround coming as the game against the Flames progressed.
“We’re slowly making adjustments,” Schenn said. “The second half of the (Calgary) game, we got a little bit of emotion going, played a little bit harder, got results with it, and we carried that into (Vancouver).
“Obviously, we’re going to continue to get better, make adjustments, but I like our response after a tough home opener.”
Winger Jake Neighbours (three goals) and rookie winger Jimmy Snuggerud (two goals, one assist) have delivered fast starts on the Blues’ forward lines. Snuggerud scored twice against the Canucks.
“He was all over pucks,” said St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery. “He was tenacious on pucks, hounding them and then, obviously, that release is pretty special on the first goal, and the second goal is where you score goals — right around the net.”
Newcomers Pius Sutter (one goal, one assist) and Nick Bjugstad (one goal, five hits, two blocked shots) have strengthened the Blues’ supporting cast up front. Forward Alexandre Texier filled in effectively while Alexey Toropchenko missed the last two games with lower- and upper-body soreness.
After starting their season 0-2-1, the Chicago Blackhawks rebounded to defeat the Utah Mammoth 3-1 on Monday. First-year Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill believes his young team is making major strides under the new staff.
“They’re a group that wants to have better days than what they’ve had,” Blashill said. “They’ve shown that with their work ethic and their ability to come back day in and day out and, honestly, take a lot of coaching. Sometimes taking coaching isn’t easy because there’s some negatives sometimes to that.
“They just continue to come back and want to get better. They’re a group that ultimately wants to be great.”
Forwards Teuvo Teravainen (one goal, four assists), Frank Nazar (one goal, four assists), Andre Burakovsky (two goals, one assist) and Connor Bedard (two goals, one assist) have enjoyed good offensive starts for the Blackhawks.
Goaltender Spencer Knight played well in all three of his starts while posting a 2.35 goals-against average and a .920 save percentage.
Checking forward Jason Dickinson returned Monday after missing one game with an upper-body injury. He saw the victory over Utah as an important learning experience for the team.
“Teaching the group as a whole, this is how we do it, and this is how we have to do it a lot,” Dickinson said. “We likely won’t be in blowouts, so we have to be willing to dig in and play for those tight wins and win every little battle because they matter. I thought we did a pretty good job. We gave some things up, but we didn’t let it rattle us. We didn’t let it shake us. We just kept pushing.”
