St. Louis Blues Week in Review

After outbattling two Stars players on the boards, Patrik Berglund got the puck to Oshie in the corner. Oshie than walked out and was challenged by Marty Turco giving Oshie little room to work with. Turco was unaware of the small hole he left in the upper corner of the net and Oshie roofed the puck for his ninth goal of the season.

They kept the hot streak going the next time the line was on the ice. An errant clearing attempt was intercepted by Barrett Jackman to keep the play alive in Dallas' zone. David Perron took a pass from Jackman behind the net and fed it through the crease to Patrik Berglund who lined a shot past Turco for a comfortable two-goal lead.

But it wasn't as comfortable as the Blues had hoped. In the last 10 minutes the Blues had to fight off a four minute high sticking call, a two minute hooking call in the final two minutes, as well as multiple failed clearing attempts that resulted in three posts hit.

When the horn sounded Chris Mason and the Blues drew a collective sigh of relief and got out of big D with two BIG points.

Saturday Feb. 28 @ Phoenix:

The Blues wrapped up the week by visiting the Phoenix Coyotes, looking to stay three points out of the playoff spot. This game was as tightly contested as the first game was and it was McClement, again, who got things going for St. Louis.

In the second period, McClement took a pass from Alex Steen and skated down the right side of the Phoenix zone on Ed Jovanovski. At the faceoff circle McClement cut to the center of the rink and pulled a shot back across his body to beat Illya Bryzgalov for a 1-0 lead. It was the first time in five games that the Blues had scored the first goal.

Early in the third period Perron put the Blues up 2-0. With Ken Klee in the box for high sticking, Perron took a feed from David Backes, walked in and wired a shot that Byrzgalov didn't even see.

Mason's shut-out bid was ruined by Olli Jokinen when his sixth power play goal of the season found its way between his pads. Now down only one the Coyotes upped the forecheck pressure for the first time in this game.

With this added pressure the Coyotes looked like they were going to get the tying goal relatively soon but McDonald would have none of that. With a minute to go in the game McDonald and Keith Tkachuk broke out on a two-on-one and, after some nifty passing, McDonald netted his third goal of the month for the two goal lead.

A year after going 0-4 against Phoenix, the Blues are now 3-0 against the Great One's Coyotes and will look for the sweep on April 7 in Phoenix.

While this past week has done wonders to get this team back into the playoff hunt, it's going to take more off the same over the next month to get them there. The Blues will have 17 of their final 20 games against playoff or playoff potential teams.

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