In which I don’t whine about the OT goal

Blues fans, you can be upset about the manner in which Thursday’s game ended – but it isn’t really that important.

Ed Jovanovski scored the game winner, 3:37 into overtime off a weird bounce in front of the net. The play was reviewed, and the goal stood – I’m not going to debate either way about the legitimacy of the goal; I’ve watched it a couple times now, and it doesn’t seem like there was a ton of evidence against the initial ruling that was made on the ice.

Point is, it doesn’t matter at all – even if the goal was illegal. If the Blues don’t want to worry about getting bad calls against them in overtime, they should try scoring in the first period. They went into Thursday’s game saying the same things they had said all last week; that they needed to start the game strong and get an early lead, and neither of these things happened. They only managed six shots on net in the first period, and only three shots in the entire third period.

Chris Mason gave another stellar performance, stopping Robert Lang on a breakaway in the first period, and making a total of 31 saves on the night. So many times in the past, the goaltending has been the achilles heel of this organization – but so far this season, the underperforming offense has been the primary reason this team is on a three game losing streak.

I’m not throwing this team under the bus (or even all of the Blues forwards – David Perron had an amazing game). Clearly, they’ve got some kinks to work out, but it’s very early in the year, and this team can still be a force in the highly competitive Western Conference.

Honestly, you have to deal with the facts of the situation here – a questionable goal didn’t beat the Blues, a poor performance in the first and third periods did.