St. Louis Blues sweep Chicago Blackhawks for first time everon March 9, 2020 at 12:00 pm

It is very hard to swing momentum when you are that bad on the power play. That is something that needs to be fixed over the offseason. You can’t be a playoff team if your special teams are not good. It is one thing if they are average, but this Chicago power play is straight-up bad. On those four power-play chances, a total of eight minutes, they had one single shot on goal. That is simply not going to get it done.

Not scoring a single goal on the Blues is not very good. It is worse when you remember that they only scored once on the Detroit Red Wings two nights prior. The two opponents are very different but the Hawks rely on their scoring to win so when they don’t score, they are toast. Jake Allen was in the net which makes it worse. No disrespect to Allen, but Jordan Binnington is their number one but somehow the Hawks let Allen shut them out twice. Both of those shutouts came at the United Center and are his only two shutouts of the season.

The one positive that came out of this game was the broadcast. It was the first time that a United States broadcast of the NHL had an all-female crew. Kate Scott did the play by play while AJ Mleczko was the color commentator. Kendal Coyne Schofield was at ice level “inside the glass” which made it even better. It was a great day to celebrate International Women’s Day. The women’s game is incredible and it is good to see everyone putting their best foot forward as far as growing this great game. Hockey is for everyone.

The Blackhawks are now in a six-point rut. Their next attempt to start to climb out of it comes on Wednesday night. The San Jose Sharks are coming to town to try and play spoiler. They are not going to the playoffs either so it is a matchup of two former Western Conference powers having off years.