The St. Louis Blues lost to the Boston Bruins with four games remaining. No big deal. The problem is that the entire team lost the game.
Teams lose all the time. Winning streaks end. Losing to the Bruins is not a harbinger of doom to come. What is concerning about these St. Louis Blues is the very thing that makes them a Cup contender.
Over the past month, we’ve done several stories discussing how the Blues are greater than the sum of their parts. That makes them incredibly difficult to beat. Unfortunately, it also seems to make them incredibly easy to beat.
The team either plays very well as a team or quite poorly as a team. It seems like you rarely get one player that steps up and picks the team up when they have a bad game.
If you had to pick someone it would likely be the goaltending duo of Brian Elliott and Jake Allen as players that have carried this team in times of strife. In terms of the rest of team though, it always seems to be feast or famine.
The Bruins game was a perfect example. Sure the team got flashes and put in some decent effort in spurts. You can’t have an awful game and score five goals. Even with five goals, the entire squad of the Blues just seemed off and that seems to happen all the time.
That’s what is scary about this team. When they are on, you have three or maybe even four lines to defend. From the STL line all the way down to the fourth line, the Blues have talent to take it to the opposition and nobody to truly focus on. There is no gameplan that says “if we stop player X, we’re going to win the game” when the Blues are clicking.
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The opposite is true as well. When the team is having a bad game it really is the entire team having a bad game. As good as Vladimir Tarasenko is, he doesn’t seem to have the cutthroat mentality to take over a game when everyone surrounding him is off. As much as many love the captain, David Backes, as a person, he seems to be unable to get his teammates to step up at certain times.
Admittedly, a lot of this comes down to the eye test. There aren’t a ton of stats to throw out there to prove or disprove something like this. One player might not have the same jump as everyone else in a big win or a player might be getting some big hits and playing ok when the team has a tough loss and it can go unnoticed.
However, all one has to do is look at the results of March for this issue. For the most part, every single win was a great team win with just about everyone pitching in. On the same token, the entire team played terribly in the losses.
There was no savior that picked the team up and put them on their shoulders during that western Canadian swing. The entire team looked bad and their results suffered against sub-par teams. The same was true against the Boston Bruins. The entire team looked slow and lethargic.
Going into the playoffs this is somewhat worrying. The playoffs are where heroes are born and legends are made. If the Blues don’t get a standout performance every now and then from someone other than their goaltenders, it might make for some difficult times.
On the flip side, we’ve already discussed how exciting this team can be when they are on. There isn’t one player or one line you can focus on. Shut down the STL line and Robby Fabbri, Paul Stastny and Troy Brouwer step up. Turn up the physicality and Backes, Patrik Berglund and Alexander Steen are up to the task.
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That’s what we can expect in the postseason – ups and downs. It’s going to make for frustrating times, but it’s too late to expect someone to stand out from the pack right now.
As fans, we have to hope for several winning streaks and to keep the losing ones away. The goaltending is the x-factor as Elliott and Allen could be the savior. When it comes to scoring and defending, the Blues are going to win as a team and lose as a team.