What was supposed to be a two game meeting on the ice turned into a never before seen seven game series for the St. Louis Blues and the Arizona Coyotes. Overall, the series was fairly even up until the very last game, which decided the winner of this playoff-like matchup during the regular season.

The Blues just completed an unprecedented seven game series against the Coyotes on Monday, February 15. Originally, the two teams were supposed to meet for two games in St. Louis, but a two game matchup against Colorado got postponed and the Blues found themselves scheduled for four more back-to-back games against the Coyotes. In addition, a trip to Minnesota for one following game was also cancelled, so two more games against Arizona were added to the Blues’ schedule.

With a total of six, a seventh game was added to the calendar on Friday night for a series that looked like it belonged in the playoffs. The first game was played on Feb. 2 and ended with a close win for the Blues at 4-3. This matchup featured a couple of huge saves for keeper Jordan Binnington and four key goals from Vince Dunn, Justin Faulk, Mike Hoffman, and Ryan O’Reilly.

Although this was an exciting start to the series, it quickly diminished as the Blues defense struggled to stop the Yotes from scoring. The Blues lost the next three games of the series with one to two point goal differentials. One of these losses even went into shutouts, but to no avail.

“It feels almost like a playoff series. They have a good hockey team over there,’’ Hoffman said in a post game interview.

After this disappointing losing streak, the Blues came back on Feb 12 and crushed the Coyotes 4-1, re-establishing themselves in the series. The next day the Blues won again but this time it was much closer. The game went into overtime, but Hoffman was able to bury the puck into the net for a final score of 5-4 at Arizona, which tied the series three a piece.              

Unfortunately, the series did not end the way the Blues wanted it to. The final game on Monday went to the Yotes with a final score of 1-0. This gave them the 4-3 overall record in the series.

Although it didn’t go the way they wanted it to, the Blues have a lot more hockey left and fortunately, they will not have to play the Coyotes until April.

Don’t forget to keep cheering on our Blues, who are back in action on Thursday, February 18 against San Jose! To learn more about this year’s St. Louis Blues team, click this link.

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