ST. LOUIS — Two teams with little time to shore up their defensive play will meet Sunday night when the St. Louis Blues host the Anaheim Ducks in the second game of a back-to-back for both teams at Scottrade Center.Both teams lost road games Saturday night when the Blues fell 4-3 to the Chicago Blackhawks in overtime and the Ducks dropped a 5-3 decision to the Dallas Stars.The back-to-back set is the first of the season for each team.Article continues below ...The loss Saturday was a particularly dispiriting one for the Ducks Dmitry Kulikov Jersey , who raced out to a 3-0 lead before the midway point of the second period but allowed four goals in a span of fewer than seven minutes before intermission. The Stars racked up a franchise-record 30 shots in the second period.The Ducks, who pulled John Gibson after the second period, limited the Stars to one goal — an empty netter by Radek Faksa with 1:28 remaining — on seven shots in the third.“Our team performance, obviously, in the second period wasn’t good, but in the third, we played more of the way we need to play,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “But it takes 60 minutes to win in the NHL. We only played 40 minutes.”As far as defenseman Cam Fowler was concerned, Saturday night was a long time coming for the Ducks, who allowed opponents to fire 134 shots at Gibson in their first four games but still opened 3-0-1. “I feel terrible,” Fowler said. “He’s been phenomenal all year. He’s the reason why we even have a chance most nights. As bad as tonight was, if you look at our shot totals for us in the first five games Youth Dustin Byfuglien Jersey , it has not been good. And he’s been our best player, by far, so I feel awful for him.”The Blues rode a roller coaster as well Saturday when they fell behind 2-0 before scoring three straight goals spanning the second and third periods. But Blackhawks right winger Alex DeBrincat scored the tying goal with 6:54 left in regulation before he collected the game-winner with nine seconds left in overtime.“It’s good that the guys battled back, we got a point,” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said. “But still, there’s some areas that need to improve here.”The Blues have given up at least four goals in three of their first four games.“You have to play smart to be good defensively,” Yeo said. “And I think that when we start to have sort of an internal pride in our locker room, that when you’re on the ice, that it matters as much not to have anything bad happen as it does for something good to happen, then when we start to come together a little bit more as a team.”The Blues announced Saturday night that backup goalie Chad Johnson will make his season and St. Louis debut Sunday. Johnson, who signed as a free agent on July 1, is 3-2-0 in six career appearances against the Ducks.Miller is likely to get his first start of the season for the Ducks. He is 2-7-0 in nine career games against the Blues. ARLINGTON http://www.officialhockeyjetsshop.com/au...b-trouba-jersey , Va. (AP) Philipp Grubauer was 18 and had only been in North America for a year and a half when he walked into the Windsor Spitfires locker room as the latest member of a stacked junior team.”He was really German at that point,” Windsor teammate Taylor Hall said. ”He was very quiet, and he was a goalie, so you just kind of let them do their thing.”Grubauer did his thing all the way to the Ontario Hockey League title and the Memorial Cup. Last year, he did his thing to help Germany qualify for the Pyeongchang Olympics.This spring, he did his thing to earn the starting job for Thursday night’s playoff opener at home against Columbus. He got the nod over 2016 Vezina Trophy winner and longtime No. 1 Braden Holtby. Grubauer doesn’t make a whole lot of noise with his unassuming personality or how he makes saves – he just makes them with such regularity that he looks like a No. 1 NHL goaltender.”I’m really proud of him because he never lost focus,” Germany national team coach Marco Sturm said. ”I know it was a long wait, but he always waited for his chance and he finally has it right now.”Grubauer bided his time through four years in the minors before getting to back up Holtby. It looked like that arrangement was ending after two seasons, but when Vegas general manager George McPhee and goalie coach Dave Prior – who drafted Grubauer in 2010 – didn’t take him in the expansion draft and the Capitals didn’t trade Grubauer, the 26-year-old was back for a third year as No. 2.”I think we have had Grubauer valued more than the league has had,” Washington general manager Brian MacLellan said. ”We feel he was going to be a good No. 1 goalie. And the rest of the league, in general Austin Czarnik Jersey Womens , say that he hasn’t had time to prove it.”Getting lit up for eight goals in Philadelphia in the Flyers’ home opener was an inauspicious start, but since Oct. 27, no goalie in the league has a better goals-against average than Grubauer’s 2.06 or save percentage better than his .933.When Holtby struggled in February and March, Grubauer took the reins and went 7-3-0 down the stretch.”Grubi was able to take the ball and run with it,” said former NHL goalie Olie Kolzig, who served as Capitals associate goalie coach earlier in Grubauer’s career. ”It just comes from experience. You know you belong. When you’re first coming in as a No. 2, you’re just getting your footing and getting to know the league. But then you play games, you practice with these guys, you build relationships with your teammates, you’re accepted, you have success in games. All of a sudden, you’re getting older Josh Morrissey Jersey , you’re getting more mature, you’re taking in information and then you know.”Grubauer, now 6-foot-1, was always undersized. He was never outworked.”Quiet guy, but always worked hard,” said Nashville defenseman P.K. Subban, who played with Grubauer in Windsor. ”To get to this level, especially in that position, you have to be really dedicated to your craft. He’s obviously done a really good job of working at his game to get better and that’s why he’s playing for one of the top teams in the league now.”Grubauer went 20-1 through the OHL playoffs and Memorial Cup in 2010, and yet Hall said, ”I’d be lying if I said he’d be as good as he was now.””He always played well in the big games,” said Hall http://www.officialhockeyjetsshop.com/au...e-connor-jersey , now an MVP candidate with the New Jersey Devils. ”When we needed a save, it was always there.”That reputation followed Grubauer to the American Hockey League, where he stopped 54 of 58 shots at Providence to help steal a second consecutive game for eighth-seeded Hershey in the 2013 Calder Cup playoffs. And it continued to international play, where he stopped 66 of 68 shots in must-win qualifiers to get his country into the Olympics.Last year, when the world championships were in Cologne, Grubauer landed at the airport and went straight to the rink. High-pressure situations don’t bother Grubauer.”It seems like that’s the way he likes it,” Sturm said. ”He’s so athletic but also really calm in the net and he made the big saves when he had to. That’s something a team builds off.”The Capitals have recently built their game up in front of Grubauer, and Kolzig has noticed them playing hard for him like they did for Holtby when first called up.As he goes into his first Stanley Cup playoffs as the starter, Grubauer is trying to stay calm and not think about the stakes. Washington has not advanced past the second round in 20 years.Playing the single-elimination Olympic qualifier best prepared Grubauer for this. He couldn’t lose. And he didn’t.”The mental approach just to be dialed in and pay attention to details,” Grubauer said Wednesday. ”I learned one shot at a time. Don’t look ahead. Don’t look to the next game. Just one shot. One situation.”—