The St. Louis Blues certainly needed to shake off the cobwebs of not playing a meaningful game for nearly six months.
But once they did, it turned into a season-opening win against the Seattle Kraken.
Jordan Kyrou scored twice, Philip Broberg scored his first Blues goal in his first game and Jordan Binnington was sharp, especially in the first half of the game, to finish with 30 saves when the Blues scored three times in 1:55 to erase a two-goal deficit and pull out a season-opening 3-2 win against the Kraken on Tuesday at Climate Pledge Arena.
The Blues looked dead in the water in the game in the first period and certainly at the outset of the second when Seattle scored goals 1:53 apart from former Blues defenseman Vince Dunn and Eeli Tolvanen to spring to a 2-0 lead.
View the original article to see embedded media.
There just didn’t seem to be much life in a Blues group that was breaking in six of their seven new skaters in the game. But they finally found a spark midway through the second following a disallowed goal for offside, followed by a skirmish between Nathan Walker and Dunn, followed by Alexey Toropchenko and Yanni Gourde at 9:01.
It gave the Blues life, before getting the first power play of the game, and Kyrou scored at 13:42 to pull the Blues within one at 2-1 when he burst around Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak and beat goalie Philipp Grubauer on a backhand.
The Blues seemed to find their legs and gained zone entry and went to work prior to Broberg striking at 15:17 to make it 2-2 when Dylan Holloway, who also picked up his first Blues point, worked the puck to Justin Faulk, who had two assists, straightaway, and he found his partner skating into the left circle, and Broberg beat Grubauer after Jake Neighbours’ fly-by may have distracted the Kraken goalie, who was beat between the arm and pad far side.
And just 20 seconds later, what turned out to be a Blues record for fastest goals scored in a season-opener:
#stlblues set a franchise record for the fastest 2 goals scored in a season-opening game (:20)
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) October 8, 2024
Kyrou gave the Blues the lead what turned out to be for good at 3-2 when Alexandre Texier, also making his Blues debut, feathered a terrific pass into Kyrou’s path for a breakaway goal at 15:37.
Meanwhile, when the Blues were sleepwalking through the game and the Kraken were actually faster and working harder to pucks, Binnington was keeping the Blues in the game, making saves like this on Oliver Bjorkstrand in the second period at 11:34 right before the Blues started scoring.
The Blues managed the game well in the third period, killing off Seattle’s only power play and holding the Kraken, who didn’t have a shot on goal for the final 11:50 of the game, to four third-period shots after Seattle had 28 in the first two periods.
