Blues are running over the Eastern Conference.

In this last night’s case, literally.

The past few games against the Eastern Conference, and under the leadership of David Payne, have been boons for the Blues.  A team that had been offensively hampered as of late scored 4 goals against both the Rangers and the Canadiens.  As a whole, the Blues record against the East is just 4-6-2, but with the new “play as one” style that Davis employs, they’ve just been too much to handle.

There is no doubt that Cam Janssen needs to be in the lineup whenever possible.  His energy is absurd, and his massive leveling of Carey Price last night, while setting the stage for a Habs’ power play goal, just added fuel to a fire that had been under the team since the loss to Columbus on Monday.  Three first period goals (including one by Paul Kariya, who now has goals in back to back games) stunned the Canadiens and the Bell Centre crowd into first silence, and then jeers, as turnovers and missed opportunities mounted.

The Habs battled back to tie it in the last minute of the 3rd period thanks to the Blues doing their patented 3rd period coast – luckily, Andy McDonald popped one in high over Price to win.  The concept of playing a full sixty minutes is still a difficult one for the Blues.  They tend to pick two periods to play – different ones on any given night.  Usually it tend to be either the first period that gets off to a slow start, or the last that sees them just let up the push. The Blues got in their jabs early, and maintained massive physical pressure for the rest of the game – it was defensive lapses and a bad bounce that forced the overtime.  Watching it, though, the Habs were knocked around like ragdolls for most of the game, most notably Carey Price, who came out of the crease all the way to the boards, and tried to play a puck in front of a charging Janssen.  Bad call.  Janssen leveled Price while trying to get out of his way, and while Hamrlik tried to shove Janssen around and Price shoved at him, there wasn’t any passion involved.  Janssen’s quote of  “(Price) dropped his gloves and acted like he was going to fight me, but let’s be honest here,” could have been applied to the whole Canadiens team.

It could be applied to the Eastern Conference as a whole.  In this week’s Tuesdays With Hildy, I looked at the differences between the two conferences’ styles of play and mindset.  You could argue that the rough and tumble, blue collar mindset of the Western Conference is steamrolling the East this season.  The Blues play again tonight against the Senators, hoping to continue their north of the border sweep.  Looking at Ottawa’s roster, there is only Jarkko Ruutu to be a possible pest, and to be frank, my money would be on Crombeen or Janssen to deal with that problem fairly quickly if the need arise.

The Eastern Conference strikes fear in the heart opponents with players like Brodeur, Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, and Kovalchuk.   The Blues get to go up against Kovy the Elder and Brodeur the Lesser tonight.  If we can continue to throw teams off with our pinball style, and capitalize on their frustration and being knocked out of position, tonight should be good to go.

Some Other Articles That You May Enjoy:
The Writers
G-Cagg’s Western Conference Playoff Preview (Round One)
The East
St Louis Blues
Blues are pushing for a turn-around.
Blues Make Meatballs out of Swedish Elite Team

We hope you enjoyed this post. As always, leaving a comment below is both appreciated and encouraged. Thanks!