St. Louis Blues Becoming Experts At Breaking Hearts

The St. Louis Blues are finding new and inventive ways to lose. By proxy, they’re becoming experts at breaking their fans’ hearts as well.

Game six of the Western Conference Quarterfinals was a prime example of this. The St. Louis Blues gave fans every reason to think the game would be terrible right from the start.

Their passing was off, they looked slow and mental mistakes cost them an early lead. Kevin Shattenkirk, who would have a pretty bad game overall, turned the puck over in what is becoming an ever increasing habit. Chicago would immediately make him and the Blues pay by taking an early 1-0 lead.

Then, in true Blues fashion, they went off on Chicago. The Blues rattled off three unanswered goals en route to a fantastic 3-1 lead after the first period. Pack your bags, St. Louis is going to the second round and Chicago is hitting the links. Right?

Well, when you’re a Blues fan things are never that simple. They wouldn’t be that simple on this night either.

For the first period, the Blues were fantastic though. Almost immediately after giving up that initial goal, they had a great bounce back. Of all people the tying goal featured Steve Ott setting up Scottie Upshall.

Only minutes later the Blues took the lead. Again, gaining the zone and putting pressure quickly was the key and Alex Pietrangelo would pound one into the back of the net.

And the Blues would cap off one of their best overall periods of hockey (at least offensively) with a goal from none other than Vladimir Tarasenko. The STL line worked their magic going down the ice and Tarasenko got to his favorite spot on the ice to finish off the scoring play.

Everything was hunkey dory. Blues fans could breathe. Blackhawks fans thought their season was done. The Blues had dominated and looked like they had flung the monkey on their back into space and it looked like the defending champions were ready to slink home with their tail between their legs.

However, the Blues are known for torturing their faithful and they certainly did that tonight.

Instead of proving to their fans, to the media, to the ‘Hawks and to the world that this team really was different, they played one of their worst periods of the entire season.

Chicago rattled off three unanswered goals of their own in the middle period.  While the Blackhawks deserve credit for not giving up, the Blues defending was shameful.

The Blues got caught puck watching a little bit on the penalty kill when the game became 3-2.  Credit goes to Artem Anisimov for picking the puck up in mid-air after the initial Brian Elliott save and knocking it into the net while clearly keeping the stick below the crossbar.

Trevor Van Riemsdyk tied the game up a little more than seven minutes into the second after a great setup from Jonathan Toews.  How a defenseman got in behind everyone on the break is the astounding part.

The D-men for the Blues had done a decent job containing Toews, but Troy Brouwer failed to pick up Van Riemsdyk from the neutral zone and he popped one over Elliott.

Then the ‘Hawks answered the Blues’ fourth line goal with one of their own.  Trade-deadling pick up Dale Weise was not picked up near the side of the net and he scored to give Chicago a 4-3 lead heading into the break.

St. Louis fans and likely their players were hanging onto the fact that the Blues had outscored Chicago in the third period in almost every game and had managed to come back in similar situations.  The Blues went to the well one too many times and this time it was dry.

St. Louis outshot Chicago 11-8 in the third period, but they didn’t create enough quality scoring opportunities.  Their sustained pressure was often kept to the perimeter and Crawford only had to make one great save on a one timer from Jori Lethera that was actually whiffed on a bit.

Andrew Shaw made it 5-3 on an absolutely disgusting defensive play.  The Blues were on the penalty kill, but they ended up with both defenders guarding the outside of the posts while Andrew Shaw sat alone in front of the net awaiting a pass from either Toews or Patrick Kane.  Kane found him and Shaw made no mistake.

An empty net goal by Marian Hossa, which St. Louis thankfully could not see due to a power outage at the NBC affiliate, capped off a terrible night for fans and an even worse one for the boys in blue.

Now St. Louis must muster the courage and fight to finish this series in seven…if they can.

Negatives

There might be too many to list without doing an entirely different article. The passing was terrible. The defense, mainly Shattenkirk, looked disinterested and appeared to want to just hand pucks over to Chicago. The offense just could not step back on the gas after the first period and much like game five, the passes were either just off or the puck handler could not cleanly hold on to them.

Brian Elliott looked gassed. None of the goals were his fault by any stretch, but he also could not make the huge save when called upon. The Blues may have ground him into dust with the amount of shots he has consistently seen and his legs just don’t seem to have had the same push and easy glide after that double OT.

Hitch’s mind games. I’m not even close to being part of the insane crowd calling for his job right this moment or saying it’s all his fault. Last I checked, he isn’t on the ice. That said, he’s doing too many weird things at the wrong times. Nobody seems to know why Joel Edmundson isn’t in the lineup.

There are rumors of an injury and there better be one because the defense has looked terrible without him. Also, the ice-time of Tarasenko has to be answered for. He can say Tarasenko has the most shifts of anyone all he wants, but if the shifts are shorter than anyone’s, it doesn’t matter. Just say it’s to save him for the third periods or something. Anything is better than avoiding the question.

Positives

The Blues offense in the first period. They made the most out of not much. The offense looked great on a few rushes and scored on those. Outside of that they didn’t do a ton, but that’s the point. You’re not going to always have the puck against Chicago, so in these types of games you have to take advantage and they did…for one period anyway.

Colton Parayko. He’s only a rookie, but he’s learning fast. He was the only defender who gave a constant effort. That’s not to say he made zero mistakes, but at least he was busting his butt. He unleashed a shot on Crawford that almost knocked him out of the game and had it not come at the end of the period, the Blues may have been able to see if Crawford was going to be gunshy following that blast.

There’s still a game left. At this point, there’s little reason to doubt the Blackhawks can/will win. However, if the Blues are to be taken seriously then they have one last opportunity. It shouldn’t have taken seven games, but even championship teams in the past have had hiccups on the way and hopefully we’ll look back on this as just that.

Looking Forward

Game seven is going to be Monday night at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. The scheduled gametime is 7:30 p.m. CST, which means the puck will likely drop around 7:50ish.

Chicago likely has some unworldly record in game sevens, but St. Louis can’t concern themselves. It’s do or die and another round of pitiful interviews and excuses following a lost season doesn’t sound appetizing to anyone. Time to put up or shut up for once.