St. Louis Blues: Enough Talk About The Lineup, Just Play Better

During the regular season, there was a lot of talk about the lineup and who was playing with whom for the St. Louis Blues. The time for that talk is over.

One of the constant issues regarding the St. Louis Blues is who is in the lineup and/or who is on whose line. It was fine in the regular season and made sense at times.

There were plenty of times when the lines were messed up and gave fans reason for consternation. The injuries that plagued the lineup throughout the year was to blame for much of it, but Ken Hitchcock does tend to tinker at times, though the amount isn’t that much more than any other coach in the league.

There were times when Paul Stastny was playing with a certain set of wingers only to be switched around a few games later and thus not produce as much while he’s getting used to their tendencies. The same could be said of many of the centers.

There was a period where Robby Fabbri was lighting it up when playing with Stastny and Troy Brouwer and those two were benefiting just as much by playing with him. Then the line would change and production would go down for everyone and people would whine and complain and cry to the heavens about why would anyone alter the chemistry.

At the time, it wasn’t that crazy of a question. People who aren’t in the locker room don’t understand why there would be any change when things are going well. The idea might be to take someone who is playing well and pair them with someone who has been lagging and give a boost.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Unfortunately, that involves splitting up lines sometimes. I don’t always agree with it and clearly others don’t as well, but it happens and fans are left to just deal with it in their own way.

Regardless of all this, the Blues had one of their more successful seasons ever. They had over 100 points in the regular season with almost 95% of the lineup injured at some point or another. Clearly something had gone right.

Now things have taken a bit of a turn. Hitchcock has stuck with the same lines game in and game out for much of the playoffs, only tinkering when someone got overused on the special teams.

Now that’s apparently a problem. Social media was littered with questions of why this player wasn’t moved to that line and such talk. The main one is why is Stastny not moved up to the line between Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz.

There’s nothing wrong with that conversation. That line would likely be quite productive. In fact, the Blues began the season with Stastny and Tarasenko playing together and it was broken up when Stastny got injured.

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However, by now it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter who is playing on which line at this point of the season.

Yes, there are those who will have more chemistry with certain players. At this point though, everyone just needs to play better.

Game 1 of the St. Louis Blues against the Dallas Stars was not affected by line combinations. It was affected by poor play and effort that wasn’t up to snuff. Swapping players would not have changed this.

One could argue that changing the lines might send a message to change, but they still just needed to play better. The team just needs to play better.

The good thing is they can and have. The Blues are more than capable of outplaying the Stars even though the Stars have one of, if not the best offense in the league.

The Blues can roll out four solid lines and just had an off game to start the series. It was magnified a little bit because everyone was coming off the emotional high of defeating Chicago and getting out of the first round.

Now it’s down to the players. Hitchcock can swap whatever players he wants or change whatever lines he wants. Fans can be given their complete wishlist in terms of combinations and taking certain players out and putting others in. It doesn’t matter.

Next: The Time For Wake-Up Calls Is Over

The only player that has almost no room for improvement after the first game of the second round is Brian Elliott. It’s a bit of a shame that such a fantastic performance went unrewarded, but that’s how sports go. The Blues just have to amp it back up and get sharp.

If they do that, they’ll be fine. It won’t matter what lines they roll out. If each individual is doing their best, they’re going to have every opportunity to win. After all, they still had a chance to win when almost nobody was doing their best.