St. Louis Blues: Are They Dirty?
By Todd Panula
The St. Louis Blues do have a propensity for taking penalties. Does that make them a dirty team? Ask people in this city and the answer is no, but it seems to be different for other people.
Chicago fans seem to think the St. Louis Blues are a dirty team since our team is more physical than theirs. Dallas fans probably have a similar feeling, despite the fact the Blues aren’t that much bigger than they are.
A common thread through many of those sentiments is it usually comes from either fan bases – understandable given the fact that some just aren’t used to actually losing to the Blues, so come up with an excuse in their head to justify it – or from teams that are physically smaller – also understandable because physicality can often look dirty whether it is or not (just look at Game 1 of Tampa vs Pittsburgh).
So it came as a bit of a surprise that the San Jose Sharks, a very large and very talented team, and their head coach Pete DeBoer all but declared the Blues a dirty team.
Now, DeBoer will deny saying any such thing. If pressed, he would fall back on the idea that he’s just calling the Blues reckless and undisciplined. Read between the lines and he’s saying much more and asking for much more.
We’re relying on the officials to do their job. St. Louis is one of the most penalized teams…They need to call the game accordingly – Pete Deboer
DeBoer was quoted in his own press conference. Oddly enough, the conversation sparked out of something seemingly innocuous. DeBoer and Joe Thornton were asked about the beard tug-of-war that Thornton had with David Backes during their offday press conference.
Thornton just brushed it off and said it gets him and the team fired up. DeBoer didn’t think it was quite so innocent.
“We’re relying on the officials to do their job. St. Louis is one of the most penalized teams in the league, regular season and playoffs,” said DeBoer. “They need to call the game accordingly. (We) need to make them pay a price for being the most penalized team on the powerplay, which we didn’t (in Game 1).”
The St. Louis Blues aren’t always disciplined. It drives fans crazy with the amount of times they put themselves in the box.
However, the implication seems to be they are a dirty team and nothing could be further from the truth.
Steve Ott is an irritant and an agitator, but he rarely does anything truly over the line. The same is true for everyone on the Blues.
Andrew Shaw got dirty toward the end of the Blackhawks’ series with the Blues. Kris Letang has shown himself to be dirty at various points of his career. DeBoer need look no further than to the uncontrollable beard on his roster for another dirty player.
Blues fans still remember his dirty hit on then St. Louis member, David Perron. Thornton knew that Perron was prone, knew he was unaware that a player double his size was coming and threw a shoulder into his jaw.
Perron was never quite the same in his Blues career due to the concussion sustained from that hit. That is dirty, Mr. DeBoer.
You would think a coach that was in charge of one of the most physical teams in the league, the New Jersey Devils, would understand.
Even if he isn’t calling the Blues dirty, he’s pandering for calls. Is this the NBA?
DeBoer isn’t Phil Jackson, that’s for sure. At least NBA coaches are usually still a bit coy about their pandering. DeBoer flat out called the refs incompetent for not penalizing the Blues more since clearly they had to have been doing illegal things simply because they were called for more regular season penalties.
It wasn’t just a reaction to Game 1 either. DeBoer said the same things prior to the series.
He stated very clearly again that the Blues were one of the most penalized teams in regular and postseason and the Sharks “know they’re going to get chances on the powerplay.”
If it works, it works and you can’t necessarily fault a coach for attempting anything in order to gain his team an advantage. However, it seems a bit unsavory for the sport of hockey to lower itself to whining to the refs and telling them they need to keep a close eye on a team.
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DeBoer can think what he wants. The rest of the league and their fans can think what they want.
The Blues are a physical team. If you can’t handle that, then that’s your problem.
The Los Angeles Kings were a physical team and skirted the line of the rules and while fans didn’t like it, you didn’t hear coaches like Ken Hitchcock or Joel Quenneville pandering for more penalties to be handed out.
Hitchcock seemed quite annoyed by the actions as well. “I’m going to do my job. If other guys want to whine and get other people that have to work for them, that’s up to them,” said Hitchcock.
As fans, we can only hope this is much ado about nothing. Hopefully the refs shrug it off and call things as they did in Game 1, because the penalties called were penalties and they let everyone just play outside of that.
As fans we can also hope that DeBoer’s actions backfire. Not so much in terms of the officials, but his own team.
Being a soccer official, I have noticed that when coaches focus on officiating, so do their players and they get equally irritated. If that happens to the Sharks, it plays right into the Blues hands and they can also use whatever advantages they can get.
Next: Blues Helping To Heal A Wounded City
The Blues are not a dirty team. They don’t have dirty players. People from other teams can think differently, but the Blues have gotten where they are based on talent, will and determination. They haven’t got anywhere based on the number of penalties given or not.