Blues’ Drew Bannister defends 11 forwards, 7 defensemen move – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Blues interim coach Drew Bannister stood by his decision to dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen after his team’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Golden Knights on Monday night.

Marco Scandella entered the lineup as the seventh defenseman while Zack Bolduc exited the fold. Asked after the loss about rethinking his decision, Bannister said, “No, if you look at the third period, we had a ton of energy in the third period.

“Like our guys were skating, and I thought that was something that we didn’t do in the first two periods when we needed to,” Bannister said. “I didn’t think we stayed in as many battles as we needed to in the first two periods to create more offensive-zone time and come up with more pucks. In the third period, the switch flipped for them, and they started to work and stay on pucks and got rewarded by quality scoring chances.”

The Blues navigated a few tricky situations against the Golden Knights that left them undermanned up front.

In the first period, Brandon Saad left the game briefly after absorbing a hit from Brayden McNabb, which led to Brayden Schenn fighting McNabb. That took two Blues forwards off the ice and left them to use just nine forwards for almost half of the period.

In the second period, once Saad and Schenn were once again available, Oskar Sundqvist left the game and did not return due to a lower-body injury that resulted from a hit by McNabb. After the game, Bannister did not have an update on Sundqvist, and the Blues did not practice Tuesday.

Part of the reason the Blues went to 11 forwards Monday is because they kind of did so Saturday in a 5-4 overtime win against the Wild. Bolduc was benched for the third period, leaving Bannister to rotate 11 forwards.

“I felt that we went to 11 forwards in the third period (against Minnesota Saturday) and we seemed to get a lot of energy,” Bannister said. “I wanted to get my best players the most ice time here tonight. Obviously it’s an important game for us, and we felt we put the 20 best players on the ice that deserved to be out there tonight.”

On the back end, the Blues jumbled their pairs in an attempt to put certain players in specific situations.

As a result, Matthew Kessel played just 11:51. Marco Scandella played 6:56, and Scott Perunovich was on the ice for 5:19. The other four defensemen — Colton Parayko, Nick Leddy, Torey Krug and Justin Faulk — all played at least 22 minutes.

“Well, it’s just opportunitism,” Bannister said. “With Scandella, we’re more or less going to use him in the D-zone and try to get Perunovich and Kessel in situations offensively a little bit more. The other four, I thought, were outstanding for us tonight. They played a lot of minutes and they were quality minutes and they played hard.”

Perunovich will reach a checkpoint Saturday when he plays his 74th NHL game (regular season and playoffs combined). Once he hits that mark, it will guarantee that he will be a restricted free agent this summer instead of a Group 6 unrestricted free agent. Players typically have to play 80 games in order remain an RFA, but Perunovich’s number is lower due to the COVID-shortened seasons.

He was on the ice for Pavel Dorofeyev’s goal against in the first period and was responsible for leaving the middle of the ice to chase the puck along the boards.

“Yeah, so there was a battle in the corner there,” Bannister said. “Walks, he loses his footing. I think it was Scotty Perunovich should’ve probably just held his ice, let him get up and recover in that situation and probably that play wouldn’t have happened.”

Krug was on the ice for the game-winning goal by Jonathan Marchessault, stuck below the goal line after losing a board battle, a play that sullied a decent night from the veteran blue liner.

He finished with six shots on goal (tied a season high for Krug) and nine shot attempts (tied for third this season). Krug had a prime chance in the first period on the power play and again in the third period when his shot hit Logan Thompson and then the crossbar.

“I was shooting; I had a lot of chances tonight,” Krug said. “Saw it hit his shoulder, hit the bar and was just hoping it went in. Obviously, it didn’t. Like I said, in the third period, we were skating, and we were making plays. That’s just another example of one of the many chances that we couldn’t get to get behind him.”

During the 18:06 at five on five when Krug was on the ice, the Blues held a 27-18 advantage in shot attempts and a 16-9 edge in shots on goal.

“Games like this are why you want to play in St. Louis,” Krug said. “Great home-ice advantage, fun atmosphere. This time of year, you want to be playing important hockey games. Good for us to hang in there, but we just couldn’t get that extra one to push us forward in the playoff race.”

Despite the loss, the 5-9 Krug had some dry humor about the size of the Golden Knights roster.

“It’s a big hockey team,” Krug said. “I guess every team seems that way for me.”

When Schenn fought McNabb after he hit Saad, it was a matchup of … friends?

“He’s a buddy,” Schenn said. “He’s from Saskatchewan; I’ve trained with him. That’s the playoff-type atmosphere of the game, and you stick up for your teammates. I’m a firm believer in: It doesn’t matter who it is, you have to show that you care about your teammates. Obviously, a hard hit by McNabb. Good to see ‘Saader’s’ OK.”

Schenn was assessed a fighting major and a roughing minor for the play, while McNabb was just given a fighting major. Schenn was not sure what he did to deserve to earn the extra two minutes.

“Even McNabb and Marchessault are in the box there and were saying they didn’t agree with it,” Schenn said. “I asked him to fight, we dropped the gloves and I don’t even know if I pushed him. I definitely didn’t punch him before I asked him to fight. I have no explanation on that.”