The NHL Central division has long been seen as the best and/or toughest division in hockey, if not sports. This season, it’s been a rather crazy ride for everyone involved so far.
The St. Louis Blues have a lot of work to do if they want to get get back into the divisional race. It is very early and they are technically tied on points with Minnesota.
Even so, this team is beginning to look like a squad that will struggle to make the final eight. They aren’t scoring, they aren’t defending and the goaltending is either spectacular or not on point at all.
As mentioned, it is still very early in the season. We aren’t even a quarter of the way into the season, but these are also crucial points being dropped that will put more pressure on the team to perform during the dog days of the winter.
The Blues started the week off on a sour note, but playing fairly well. Coming off their 5-1 win over Colorado last week, they played a tough game against Chicago.
St. Louis outhit Chicago – a rare feat these days – kept them scoreless in the second period and played very well overall. If not for some dumb penalties, the Blues might have had a shot to win it themselves in overtime.
Instead, it was the Hawks that struck early and left the Blues with only a point. It all went downhill from there.
The Blues had a great first period against Nashville and even scored the game’s first goal. Putting themselves in the penalty box constantly did not cost the Blues a goal, but it took away their energy and fluidity.
They gave up three straight and lost 3-1. Then came the true embarrassment.
Use whatever excuse you want, and there are plenty, but the Blues just did not show up for this one and we’ve said that way too much this season. Before you could blink it was 2-1 and then 301 at the end of one.
Columbus would make it 7-1 before the Blues mustered another answer. 8-4 doesn’t even seem to show how far behind the Blues were.
Those of us searching for positives had a little bright spot. The Blues had four powerplay goals.
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Robby Fabbri scored twice and Vladimir Tarasenko put a goal in as well as three assists. Both of those guys breaking some slumps has to be seen as a good thing.
The scary thing is the defense. When a team that has struggled to score gets four but it doesn’t even matter, you have issues.
St. Louis had better figure things out quickly. The rest of the division is underperforming as well (except Chicago), but you cannot expect that to continue.
Blues Weekly Stats
Vladimir Tarasenko – 1G 5A 6P
Jori Lehtera – 0G 1A 1P
Jaden Schwartz – 1G 1A 2P
Robby Fabbri – 2G 0A 2P
David Perron – 0G 3A 3P
Kevin Shattenkirk – 1G 1A 2P
Colton Parayko – 0G 1A 1P
Jay Bouwmeester – 1G 0A 1P
Alex Pietrangelo – 1G 0A 1P
Jake Allen – 36 saves/42 shots, .857 save percentage, 4.25 goals against
Carter Hutton – 39 saves/46 shots, .848 save percentage, 4.54 goals against
View from the Midwest Division Recap
Looking Forward
The Blues theoretically have a decent start to this week. Off on Monday, they take on Buffalo at home on Tuesday.
The way the team has played recently though, you can’t chalk up anything until the game plays out though. Even with injury woes of their own, Buffalo can still come alive to score.
The Blues need to get a win in that one. They play San Jose on Thursday.
Though the Sharks aren’t playing as well as they would like, they are defending well. They’ve allowed the fewest goals in the conference to this point.
The Blues end their three game home-stand against Nashville. The Predators haven’t figured things out either, but we saw how well that worked out for St. Louis this past week.
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The Blues are at a point where they can’t worry about other teams. As fans, we do, but the team has to right its own ship before they worry what the other boats are doing.
That is clearly easier said than done. That’s why they all get paid big bucks though.