Fading Blues end with a surprise
Derrick Goold Post-Dispatch
updated: 04/07/2003 07:18 AM
DENVER -- The Blues' penchant for floundering in the first period and their recent passionless play continued Sunday in the season finale, but with events falling together elsewhere, they might have ended up in the best possible situation.
The Blues spotted Colorado a 3-0 lead en route to a 5-2 loss at Pepsi Center. Fully expecting to play the Avalanche in the first round of the playoffs, the Blues kicked back to watch Vancouver play Los Angeles.
The Canucks needed just a point to win the Northwest Division title, claim the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference and lock the Avs-Blues matchup.
It didn't happen.
With two third-period goals. Los Angeles defeated Vancouver 2-0 and sent the Blues racing for a charter flight to British Columbia, scrapping the team's advance scouting and tape dissection for a series in Colorado. The Blues open the best-of-seven first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Canucks.
"It was very, very surprising what we just saw happen there," Blues coach Joel Quenneville said as LA finished its victory. "I don't think anybody counted on that happening. Here we're figuring we had our hands full with (Colorado) and now we're leaving. (Vancouver) had the hammer. They had the chance. We're very surprised."
But Vancouver might be a better matchup for the Blues.
Start with goalie Chris Osgood's 12-1-4 career record in 19 games against Vancouver. Osgood is "absolutely" the Blues starter in Game 1, Quenneville said.
And, because Chicago rallied from a 2-0 deficit to defeat Detroit 4-3 in overtime, the Red Wings finished behind Dallas in the Western Conference. So if the Blues defeat Vancouver and Colorado topples Minnesota while the top two seeds win, the Blues would Texas two-step around Detroit in the second round.
The only team more fortunate than the Blues on Sunday was Colorado, which won an NHL-record ninth consecutive division title and claimed some individual honors. (The Blues would do well to to jot down Vancouver's clutch ability here: Not only did the Canucks botch the division title, they lost individual merits, too.)
Colorado's Peter Forsberg had an empty-net goal and two assists vs. the Blues to nip Vancouver's Markus Naslund for the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's top scorer. Forsberg finished with 29 goals and 77 assists for 106 points. Naslund went pointless Sunday and finished with 103.
Also, Forsberg linemate Milan Hejduk scored his 50th goal of the season - it came with 14:22 remaining and halted the Blues' advance by giving Colorado a 4-2 lead. The Kings shut out Naslund, who had 48 goals, so Hejduk skated off with the Richard Trophy for the league's top goal-scorer.
"We had help," goalie Patrick Roy said. "I can remember - What? We were 14, 16 points behind (Vancouver)? But we're playing well at the right time."
The Blues - ahem - are not.
Winless in the final five games and 2-5-2-0 in their past nine, the Blues finished 41-24-11- 6. They've been lackadaisical in first periods, rudderless defensively and emotionally meek. Quenneville recently questioned his team's desire, as if they lost track of what they were playing for.
"We have to start better," Doug Weight said, "or we won't be around that long."
Sunday's game followed the same script as the Blues' recent trend. Adam Foote and Derek Morris added power-play goals to Joe Sakic's opening goal for a 3-0 first-period lead. In the second, Eric Boguniecki scored and newly signed rookie Peter Sejna added a power-play goal to trim the Avs' lead to one for the second intermission.
As in more than half of their games, the Blues let the other team take the lead.
"We've got to play with emotion, we've got to play with an edge and we're better when we play like that, (but Sunday) it was like we were looking for an easy game again," Quenneville said. "We got ourselves back in it, but we've played 82 games . . . and now it's time to see where we're going."