DETROIT _ The Blues made their final trip to Joe Louis Arena, which has an appointment with the wrecking ball at the end of the season, and at the building outside St. Louis they've played more games than anywhere else, they did something they had never done before in the franchise's 50 seasons.
After winning the first four games of five consecutive road games and making a brief pit stop back home, they went back on the road and won again, beating Detroit 2-0 on Wednesday. In the franchise's history, while the Blues have won five straight on the road before, they've never done it without an intervening home game. On a trip that looked like a major test of how this team's season would play out, they got a perfect grade.
Ivan Barbashev, who was in the AHL for much of the team's earlier road struggles, had the goal, scoring 2:06 into the game and the Blues held on the rest of the way, with Joel Edmundson adding an empty-net goal with 10.3 seconds to play as the Blues scored on their first and last shots of the game. Carter Hutton, coming off a shutout at Philadelphia to start this run of road games, closed it the same way. He was severely tested on a power play early in the third period, but made a series of saves to keep them off the board. Hutton came into the game with three shutouts in his previous six starts, with all of the shutouts coming on the road. His four shutouts this season matches his career total.
The team's road success is a good sign for the rest of the season, since even after playing five straight away from Scottrade Center, the team has 14 of its final 25 games away from Scottrade Center, meaning whether or not this team makes the playoffs will be decided in another area code. The change has been rather dramatic. Under Ken Hitchcock, the Blues were 8-13-1 on the road and had been outscored by 19 goals. Under Mike Yeo, they were 4-0 coming into the game and had outscored their opponents by 11 goals.
The game started a run of not just three games in four days, but just about the quickest three-in-four possible. The Blues flew home after the game, arriving early Thursday (for television purposes, the game started at 8 p.m. Eastern time), and they'll be on a plane again on Friday afternoon for a game in Buffalo that starts at noon Central time on Saturday. That adds up to the Blues playing three game in about 65 hours, or three games in less than three full days.
It figured to be an emotional game for the Red Wings. Instead of a morning skate, they went to Detroit's Fox Theater for the visitation for team owner Mike Ilitch, who died on Friday. Ilitch, who also owned the Tigers, the Fox Theater and Little Caesars pizza, is a beloved figure in the Detroit community and is respected around the league as one of its best owners. Prior to the game, there was a moment of silence for Ilitch, commemorated on the ice as Mr. I in front of the Red Wings bench, which lead to a standing ovation. That was followed by a video tribute to Ilitch, which led to another ovation. Stan Kroenke can only dream.
But if there was going to be some cosmic vibe for the struggling Red Wings, who have the worst record in the Eastern Conference and are likely to see their run of 25 straight playoff appearances come to an end, it wasn't there at the start.
Barbashev scored his second goal on this trip when the Red Wings decided they didn't need to cover him particularly closely. Carl Gunnarsson got the puck deep and Kenny Agostino won a battle with Niklas Kronwall behind the Detroit goal and Barbashev picked up the puck. He skated around with no one interfering, made a big circle to come back to the left dot and put a quick wrist shot under goalie Petr Mrazek's blocker.
The Blues went five for five on scoring first on this road trip, and recent history has shown they're better playing from ahead. Each team had a power play but neither could score. The Blues killed off a delay of game call on Scottie Upshall while the Red Wings killed off Brendan Smith's trip of Vladimir Tarasenko. The Blues had a great chance on that one but Vladimir Tarasenko needed to settle a pass from Kevin Shattenkirk and lost his window of opportunity.
Even though the three hadn't played together with the Wolves _ Wade Megan normally centered Agostino and Magnus Paajarvi, not Barbashev _ Yeo figured the familiarity of the three minor leaguers would work well together and it did.
Neither team scored in the second period, though the Blues had two power plays and the Red Wings had one. It was another dominant second period for the Blues, as the outshot the Red Wings 16-4 and had a few good chances, but Mrazek made the saves.
