What happened to the team that was 9-1-1 down the stretch? The Canucks happened, that’s what.
VANCOUVER -- St. Louis Blues coach Andy Murray was still encouraged, despite his team having scored but one goal in six periods of playoff hockey.
He hasn’t given up on beating the miraculous Roberto Luongo, nor does he feel like the Sedin twins and Alex Burrows are, as they appear to be, simply too good a line for his club to handle.
But Murray’s Blues are losing in this series, most recently a 3-0 setback in Game 2 Friday night. That means the old cat has to change his stripes somewhat.
So there was Murray, pounding on the glass and yelling at Alain Vigneault, the final snapshot we’ll take from GM Place on Friday night, when Murray snapped after a game-ending scrum.
"For any young coaches out there watching, that’s not the way to react," Murray said sheepishly after a setback that puts the Canucks in the driver’s seat with a 2-0 series lead.
It was clearly a case of Murray trying to show a young team how far it has to go if it wants to do anything other than bow meekly out of St. Louis’ first playoff run in four years.
Because being themselves isn’t working against this Canucks team.
Something has got to change for the Blues, or they’ll simply be a bug on the windshield of what looks to be the most promising post-season in some time here in Vancouver.
"We can’t be satisfied with just being here," Blues assistant captain Keith Tkachuk said. "We’re not. We’ve got to find a way to get pucks to the net."
Give Murray some credit. As National Hockey League coaches go, he is Ned Flanders. And if the glass ever came down and he found himself face-to-face with the burly former player Vigneault, well, it wouldn’t be pretty.
But there was the 57-year-old from Gladstone, Manitoba, apoplectic in his efforts to show his young troops that, every once in a while, you have to jump out of your own skin to get things turned around in the NHL playoffs.
"We challenged the guys in the room after the game," he said. "We were good again tonight. But to beat a team like this, you have to be very good. ‘Good’ is not good enough."
Not when Luongo is playing at this other-worldly level, or when Daniel and Henrik are fashioning two goals a night in Games 1 and 2 at Vancouver, where the Canucks have outscored St. Louis 5-1.
Luongo made a handful of five-bell saves Friday, and in an embarrassment of good fortune he also had, by Murray’s count, four posts/crossbars that also helped him keep pucks out of his net.
And the Sedins?
Daniel has been in on four of five Vancouver goals in this series, and Henrik on three of them. They each had a goal and an assist in Game 2, and have provided the very definition of first-line production in the playoffs, the last wart on their resume.
At one point, after Luongo had absolutely stoned Andy McDonald and Davis Backes, Brad Boyes stood a foot-and-a-half in front of Luongo in the low slot after the whistle blew, and stared the Canucks ‘tender down.
"He was just saying he was going to get one," Luongo said. "I told him, ‘You got one last game. That’s enough.’"
The Blues were the 19th highest scoring team in a 30-team league this season, averaging 2.77 goals per game. That average stands at 0.50 so far in the post-season, which will buy you a quick trip to the golf course and a card game, if the Blues don’t find a way to loosen up some goals at home.
What happened to the team that was 9-1-1 down the stretch?
The Canucks happened, that’s what. They are good — very good, as Murray said — no matter how well you feel the Blues are playing.
This series may find its way back to Vancouver for Game 5, or it may not.
But if you have a dinner invite for a week Sunday — when Game 6 is scheduled for St. Louis — we’re thinking you can send back that RSVP.
