St. Louis Blues Keep Losing To Non-Playoff Teams
By Todd Panula
The St. Louis Blues dropped a game to the Carolina Hurricanes. No big deal right? Well, it is when you compare it with other such losses this season.
The St. Louis Blues fell to the Carolina Hurricanes by a score of 3-2 in their first game after the Winter Classic. You might figure there would be a bit of an emotional let down after such a high, but that didn’t appear to be the problem.
The Blues got outplayed, outhustled and outshot by Carolina in much of the game. St. Louis didn’t play all that poorly, but they just were not in it for enough of the contest.
St. Louis fell behind in the first period, despite having a decent effort overall. They did manage to battle back and take a 2-1 lead, but watched that evaporate as Carolina just blew by them.
Keeping the focus on one game, it was not a terrible loss. We have seen much worse performances in very recent history.
Branching out a bit, it was another example of some of the problems plaguing this team this season. An apparent lack of speed continues to be an issue.
The Blues are not a fast team compared to what we have been seeing. The big question is whether that is an actual fact or a representation of their will and effort each shift.
St. Louis may not have afterburners on the ice, but they don’t have a bunch of slowpokes either. Yet they seem to get caught flat footed all the time.
Credit goes to the Hurricanes, who have the league’s best penalty kill, but they were flying around the ice and pressuring every single possession.
Late in the game, you honestly would not have been able to tell the Blues had a powerplay unless you counted the Hurricanes’ players on the ice. Carolina was just up in the face of every Blues player.
St. Louis gets caught giving up shorthanded chances way too often as well. Carolina did not poach one because of some brilliant saves from Jake Allen, but it is continually a problem.
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Again, viewed in a vacuum, this isn’t a terrible loss. Carolina isn’t a terrible team. They have some good talent and if not for Jay Bouwmeester tipping that puck past Allen for the game winner, this one might go a different direction.
On the larger scale, the Blues need to find a way to beat the teams under them within the conference and also the teams unlikely to see the second season over in the East. That just is not happening right now.
Call it what you will – playing to your competition, not getting up for games or just getting outplayed – St. Louis must find a way to counteract it. If you expect to be one of the league’s best, you can’t be losing to the league’s worst.
The Blues have 11 losses right now to teams that are not currently in a playoff position. Granted, a few of those are to Nashville, but still.
Some of them have been rather embarrassing. The New York Islanders are currently the second worst team in the Eastern Conference and beat the Blues.
Tampa Bay might end up making the postseason, but right now they are on the outside and still shelled St. Louis. Detroit seems very likely to miss the playoffs for the first time in a quarter century and still bedevil the Blues.
Losses happen. However, when the team has 14 losses and 11 have come to teams on the outside looking in, it does not speak to the Blues ability to dominate teams under them.
As a person that looks at the positives, you can flip that coin and say they have not lost to the teams they might face in the playoffs much. That’s a great thing, but if you continually lose to the bottom feeders, your playoff positioning suffers for it.
The Blues must find a way to defeat these teams with more regularity. Last season the Blues split with many teams, but if you want to push back up the standings you have to find a way to get points against the teams underneath you.
You push yourself upward and keep them down as well.