The St. Louis Blues fell by another dismal final score to the Dallas Stars. A 6-2 loss was not what the doctor ordered for what ails the Note.
The St. Louis Blues have some real problems right now. The scary thing is there honestly does not appear to be a clear cut way to turn it around.
The problem is not that they are a bad team. They don’t have a bad coach, no matter what Twitter tells you.
They don’t have a bad goaltender, no matter what the Lounge wants to believe. The Blues are just having any and every bad thing happen to them short of team debilitating injuries. Now excuse me while I find a big pile of wood to knock on.
The Blues just can’t get anything right and making changes has not helped matters. It truly seems like there is no quick fix and that is worrying because if there aren’t tweaks here or there to be made, then there isn’t a way to end the poor play other than a fluke game changing things.
That’s an alarming thought. This team is not great, but they aren’t bad enough to be playing the way they have recently.
They definitely are not as bad as their recent scores indicate. Unfortunately, the saying of “the game was closer than the final score indicates” only goes so far in the real world where results matter.
The Blues can be working as hard as they want. They can be doing the right things 90% of the time. If it’s not showing up in the final score, it doesn’t matter.
I’m not trying to be doom and gloom here. I’m not one of those people that thinks the sky is falling and the team will miss the playoffs.
You’re not going to see me jump on the ax the coach bandwagon. I’m not even sure a trade would fix things right now. Despite the haters, Jake Allen is keeping more pucks out than he’s letting in. He isn’t playing well by any stretch, but he isn’t the problem alone either.
Those are all knee-jerk reactions to small-scale problems. The more frightening thing to ponder is whether there is a fix.
I don’t care who the coach is. If you lack the ability to score with regularity, you aren’t going to win.
The Blues are getting shots on goal. The shots are either from positions where the initial shot has no chance or the team is not in an area for rebounds.
The ex-players keep saying the team just has to keep working. Work doesn’t seem to be the problem though.
They aren’t phoning in all these games with lopsided scores. They aren’t playing smart though.
There have been far too many turnovers or just bone headed plays. They don’t get out of the zone when they need to. In the Stars game alone, the Blues wasted an entire shift of energy just trying to get the puck over the blue line because they were all scrambling after poor exit attempts.
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There is still too much trying to set up a perfect goal instead of just ripping a shot. Though if players aren’t there for rebounds, what does it matter?
The bounces and the calls are not going St. Louis’ way either. I know, by the letter of the law, the goaltender interference call that took Alex Steen’s 200th goal away was correct. You’ll never explain to me that making every attempt to avoid contact and not actually touching the player himself makes it interference though.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Blues goal doesn’t count, goaltender interference <a href=”https://t.co/uMwOKcL5Il”>pic.twitter.com/uMwOKcL5Il</a></p>— Stephanie (@myregularface) <a href=”https://twitter.com/myregularface/status/794371826445074440″>November 4, 2016</a></blockquote>
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The Blues pretty much deflected in or knocked the puck right to Dallas for two goals. They have screened their goaltender several times this year alone and the entire team seems to be scrambling or gripping the stick too tightly.
So, if all of that is wrong, what is the solution? There is none. That’s what bothers me.
Nothing seems to matter right now. The Blues can come out flying and they lose. The players come out lethargic, nobody picks up the team and they lose.
They get good goaltending or bad goaltending and the game does not go well. They can’t score against mediocre teams and when they finally get more than one goal, they allow way too many.
St. Louis can’t just focus on scoring, because the defense is giving up too many good chances no matter what the shot totals say. They can’t focus on goaltending because even if Allen was playing like the second coming, the team is not scoring enough to support him.
This is...not good. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/KIxAsfIZvx
— Cristiano Simonetta (@CMS_74_) November 4, 2016
When they show good energy, they don’t get breaks. When they try to hard, they put themselves in bad positions.
This just isn’t a simple fix anymore. Line changes aren’t doing much.
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There is no point in pointing the finger of blame, when it belongs on everyone. David Backes, Troy Brouwer or Brian Elliott would not solve anything if things were going the way they have been.
The Blues have to find something inside. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Courage, another level, the Force…I don’t care.
They better find it fast. They aren’t in the woods yet, but their hot start will only sustain them for so long.