Monday’s matchup between the St. Louis Blues and the Edmonton Oilers had huge playoff ramifications. The Blues came into the night five points back of the Los Angeles Kings while the Oilers magic number was five, coincidentally in reference to the Blues. Stuart Skinner was slated to start for Kris Knoblauch while Jordan Binnington was backstopping the Blues for Drew Bannister.
Edmonton opens the scoring
Connor Brown starts a cycle, feeding Mattias Ekholm at the point. Mattias Janmark is screening in front, drawing both Marco Scandella and Colton Parayko in front of Jordan Binnington. Binnington is looking over top of the traffic, and sees the direction of the shot, but overreacts to his glove side with the shot going under his outstretched glove.
Edmonton disallowed goals
Darnell Nurse takes the shot from the half wall looking for a tip (otherwise it was a bad miss) and Evander Kane is able to direct it home. Unfortunately for Edmonton, the contact with the stick/glove is pretty clearly over the cross bar.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins floats the puck to the net front, with Zach Hyman attempting to redirect it in. As he passes the crease, Hyman’s skate drives through Binnington’s stick and off the top of the pad, which partially spins Binnington but actually helps him square up to the puck. As Nugent-Hopkins shoots, Binnington opens his five hole in what looks like reaching for his post. I don’t mind the goal being called off, as by Rule 78, Hyman makes contact that impairs Binnington’s ability to move freely within the crease.
Blues ties the game
The Blues work the puck from up top into a one timer for Luke Schenn on the dot. Alexey Toropchenko is the net front prescense, battling with Nurse before the latter leaves to somewhat attempt to block the shot. Skinner gets to position and is set and square as the shot is being released. The reverse angle shows what happens next pretty clearly. Skinner is filling the lane well and looks to be reacting in a straight line towards the puck. However, his whole body drifts towards the glove post. Based on the overhead linked above, a least some portion of that seems attributed to Toropchenko’s stick, which shows a lot of flex pushing on Skinner’s blocker pad. There’s likely some part of this that isn’t a perfect reaction or remaining momentum from the original skating movement, but it’s impossible to tell by how much. Based on the wording of the rule, Skinner was impaired from his ability to defend the goal in the crease by being pushed out of the way.
Both goals are very similar, as there’s arguments that the goalies still had the ability to make the save despite the contact. But both had contact from the attacking player inside the crease that visibly caused a shift in position. Based on the standard, both should have stood, or both should have been called off.
Blues take the lead
The ice was bad at the Enterprise Center all night and this play was no different. The puck is chipped up the board and Evan Bouchard makes a good effort to keep it in, attempting to get his stick and skate behind the clear. It still jumps on him and springs the Blues for a two-on-one. Kasperi Kapanen and Schenn cross, leaving Brett Kulak in no man’s land trying to break up the pass. Kapanen had the puck in a shooting position, so Skinner bites a bit on the pass release as a shot. This leaves him behind the play, as never gets fully rotated before pushing and sprawling out trying to catch up to the one timer.
Edmonton’s superstar duo at it again
McDavid strips Parayko on the boards and drives the net. Binnington fully commits to McDavid with the full length poke check on the shot side post despite the puck being beyond that radius when he makes the move. This allows McDavid to step above the goal line and feed Draisaitl for a wide open net. Binnington’s aggressiveness got the most of him here.
Blues win in OT
Ryan McLeod wins a puck battle but directs it back towards Ekholm when both the defenceman and McDavid thought the puck was going forward. Meanwhile, Schenn changes for Brandon Saad on a play that is barely onside. This gives Saad a breakaway with Jordan Kyrou providing some back cover as Ekholm pursues. Saad has a lot of speed, starting the deke on his backhand before quickly going to his forehand then five hole. It’s a tough play, and only really stoppable from that range if Skinner got his stick on it or was cheating with his blocker pad down anticipating the deke.
Summary
To my eye, the Blues were the better team on the night. The shot clock was in favour of the Oilers, but the Blues were able to create more high danger looks as a team. A large part of this was likely the penalty differential, but both goalies gave their team a chance to win on the night.
Photo by Derek Cain/Icon Sportswire
