Random Recap Thursday #14: Minnesota North Stars v. St. Louis Blues 2/19/1987

Photo Credit: NHL

By Zane Miller

On Thursday, February 19th, 1987, the St. Louis Blues hosted the Minnesota North Stars (now Dallas Stars) at St. Louis Arena as both teams maintained a similar record within the NHL’s Norris Division.

After defeating the Canucks 7-3 the day before, the North Stars barely squeaked into this game with a .500 record, taking a 25-25-7 showing as they made the long trip from Vancouver to the Gateway City. The Blues, on the other hand, had just lost to the Canucks in their most recent contest, coming up short by a score of 4-3 two nights earlier to bring up a five-game winless streak. However, the Blues were able to remain at home, saving up some crucial energy before facing Minnesota.

The goaltending matchup would be a duel of veteran netminders, with Greg Millen going for St. Louis and Don Beaupre taking the net for the North Stars. Millen was on his third team at the NHL level after a pair of substantial stints with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Hartford Whalers (now Carolina Hurricanes), but his stint in St. Louis would eventually be his most fruitful one. At this point in the 1986-87 season, though, Millen was having a tough go of it with an .871 save percentage (which was subpar even by ‘80s standards) and an 8-14-6 record. Meanwhile, Don Beaupre was in his seventh season with the North Stars at just 25 years old, coming off an excellent 1985-86 which saw him finish inside the top five for the Vezina Trophy. However, this season was not going as swimmingly, with him taking a 14-11-3 record and .881 save percentage into the midweek matchup.

Once the puck dropped, the Blues didn’t need much time to get on the board as forward Greg Paslawski capitalized on a Larry DePalma slashing penalty for a power play marker, which occurred after not one, not two, but three fights took place in the opening minutes. However, the fighting only seemed to motivate St. Louis while the North Stars remained out of sync. Forward Mark Hunter, who had been a brilliant acquisition from the Montreal Canadiens a year ago with 44 goals in 1985-86, nabbed his 26th goal of the season on an assist from future Hall of Famer Bernie Federko for his second of three helpers on the evening.

Exactly one minute of game time later, rookie Cliff Ronning would enter the picture for the Blues. After being taken by the team in the seventh round of the 1984 draft, Ronning proved himself in the Western Hockey League with nearly 200 points in the 1984-85 season alone. This earned him a call-up to the big league club and while he of course wasn’t able to immediately reach the same heights, he still had an impressive start with a hat trick in just his fourth career regular season game. In this one, though, Ronning was on his way to another multi-goal game, finding a way past Beaupre to make it a 3-0 Blues advantage.

Not to be outdone, Hunter potted another one himself at the 17-minute mark after the team successfully killed off an interference penalty from defensemen Tim Bothwell, as the dust settled with St. Louis up 4-0 after the first period. Despite the poor start for Beaupre, Minnesota head coach Lorne Henning opted not to switch goalies, likely because of the fact that backup netminder Kari Takko had just played the full 60 minutes in Vancouver the night prior.

The trio of first period fights wouldn’t be the last for the fisticuffs in this contest, as Dirk Graham of the North Stars and Doug Evans of the Blues got into it shortly after the second period got underway. This did little to turn the game around for Minnesota, who remained unable to solve Millen despite a fair amount of shots on goal. Just past the nine-minute mark, Ronning scored his second of the game to push the game into blowout territory. A few minutes later, however, the North Stars would end the shutout bid as forward Neal Broten, who would later become team captain after the team relocated to Dallas, found the net to make it a 5-1 score line going into the final frame.

Minnesota would need a miracle in order come back from four goals down on the road, a miracle that wasn’t in the cards on this night. Paslawski became the third player to earn multiple goals in the contest and while Graham would score himself to finish a helper shy of a Gordie Howe hat trick, the Blues would finally bring their winless drought to an end with the (literally) hard-fought 6-2 win.

The loss to the Blues proved to kickstart Minnesota’s downfall this season, as they would not have a winning record again the rest of the way. The wheels truly came off in a brutal month of March which saw them win just three of their last 18 games, dropping them to last in the division standings as the only team in the Norris Division to miss the postseason. While the Blues didn’t have a particularly amazing season either, they were nonetheless beneficiaries of playing in a weak division and won the Norris title with a 32-33-15 record. However, they were unable to replicate their deep playoff run from 1986, instead losing in the first round to the Toronto Maple Leafs.