St. Louis Blues: The Seventh Day Of Bluesmas
By Todd Panula
Tis the season to be jolly. With that in mind, I’ve made a conscious effort to make the last couple articles a bit more positive after a few negative ones.
On the seventh day of Bluesmas, the blue note gave to me, several seven goal scorers. Perhaps most impressive of that lot is David Perron.
Perron, through 33 games, has seven goals and 17 points. Nothing major in the grand scheme of course.
Even so, when the Blues originally signed Perron back there were a lot of misgivings. Many of those same fans would have been over the moon if Perron scored seven goals in total during the season. A third of the way through the year, he’s already there and does not show many signs that he can’t do even more.
The only complaint about Perron thus far is his consistency. He has been quite streaky this season.
Perron went dry for quite some time to begin the season. Then, he had a hat trick game against Calgary.
More dry spells and then some consecutive games with goals. Perron was even briefly close to the team lead in goals scored.
Of course he was then left behind as Vladimir Tarasenko vaulted up to his current total of 16. Still, it has been more than welcome to see Perron come much closer to what we expected of him than we ever saw in his first stint with the Blues.
On top of his scoring, seven seems to be a rather popular total. Counting Perron, the Blues currently have four guys with seven goals. They have seven guys with seven goals or more. Sevens for everyone!
One of the more odd names to be excited about with seven goals is Paul Stastny. It’s a double-edged sword for him to be scoring a bit more this season.
The good part is he is shooting more and putting some goals away. The bad part is he isn’t setting them up with regularity.
We all thought we had a top center when Stastny was signed. There were excuses in the past, such as injury, but this season Stastny isn’t getting it done.
I’ll take the goals, don’t get me wrong. However, 16 points just isn’t cutting it at this point in the year. Scoring more is great, but like the rest of the team, the focus seems to be on improving one thing while everything else went to pot.
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Back to the positive side, the Blues also have a couple defensemen with seven goals. Kevin Shattenkirk and Alex Pietrangelo have tickled the twine a total of 14 times combined.
I could go into their recent defensive shortcomings, which is actually their job, but let’s keep this more in a positive light. It’s been good to see more points coming from the point this season.
It might just be one of those things where it feels like more goals are coming from the top of the zone as opposed to reality. Still, the Blues have been taking more shots from that part of the ice as well. If the team had a bit more net front presence, they might be rewarded even more with the rebound goals.
The St. Louis Blues would love to have more scoring from certain guys. Alex Steen only has three goals and Colton Parayko has yet to score this season (not for lack of trying).
If anyone had said Stastny would have had more goals than Steen a third of the way through the season, I’d have said you were crazy. That’s what we have though.
The Blues have problems keeping the puck out of their own goal. Still, it’s a positive that they have this many guys close to 10 goals at this point in the year.
If the Blues can sustain this type of scoring – they may need to given the amount they give up – then they will be in good shape. Given the way the team has slumped recently it seems odd to talk in glowing terms about the scoring.
Next: The Sixth Day of Bluesmas
If you view it in a vacuum though, if you had picked the names out of a hat and told us they’d have seven goals by this point, most of us would take it. Now, we just need them all to continue and have a few more names join them.
Perron in particular has been a revelation. Yeah, we’d all love to have him put even more in, but you gotta take what you can get.
He has been a different player. He’s played defense and been given responsibility on the penalty kill. More consistency is all he needs, but that’s true of the entire team.