St. Louis Blues Morning Links: Righting The Ship?

Good morning Blues fans! Quite the night last night eh? It was definitely an unexpected, but welcome surprise that we will take at this point in the season.

The St. Louis Blues had given us every reason to figure there was no way they were going to beat the Minnesota Wild last night. What do they go and do? They beat the Minnesota Wild.

Not only did they beat the Wild, but despite the final score, the Blues won with reasonable comfort. I say reasonable comfort because you could still tell it was a top team against a team struggling to get into the playoffs. That said, the Blues were on their game and were in control of the game the entire way.

In any game there will be moments where you don’t clear the puck quickly enough. There will be times you have to absorb pressure and kill penalties. The Blues never looked fatigued or as though they were about to just pack it in and park the bus.

St. Louis was always trying to get on the front foot and look for offense as well. There were times where they did a little too much defending, but the Blues were generally smart about it.

There was no panic like we have seen on so many occasions. There was communication and solid positioning.

Jake Allen was tested often, but you never got that dreaded sense that a Wild goal was just about to happen. In every other game the Blues have played, you almost always got that sense at one point or another.

Even better to see was the Blues ability to come out strong. This team has struggled to put a solid 60 minutes together no matter the opponent. Last night, St. Louis came out of the gates with purpose and never lost that focus.

Additionally, the Blues got goals from Vladimir Tarasenko and David Perron. It will definitely be a good thing if the team can get those two rolling again.

The team was playing as an entire unit and it was hard not to take some joy from that. The forwards were defending, the defenders were moving the pucks quickly and Allen was bailing people out when there was the odd mistake. That’s how winning is done to take a line from Rocky Balboa.

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Negative Nelly’s will point out how the Blues were badly outshot. The naysayers will whine about the goal that Allen gave up (you try to stop a bouncing puck on ice). None of it really matters.

So much has been bad about this season, but even if this game was not picture perfect, there was nothing to really complain about. If not for that unpredictable goal, the Blues really took control of this game and never let up.

Neither team had been able to win on the other’s home ice prior to this game. Now the Blues have proven to themselves they can win in the State of Hockey.

That is incredibly important since these two teams might be seeing each other in the first round. Of course, with our luck, Chicago will jump into first and the Blues will have to play them anyway.

Here are your St. Louis Blues Morning Links to get your day started off right.

As fans we all knew how big this game was. Often times, players downplay things in the media, but that was not the case this time. Jake Allen went so far as to call it the team’s biggest win of the season. (STLToday)

Yesterday, the Blues announced they had signed prospect Tage Thompson to a three-year entry deal that will kick in tomorrow. Our own Steven Conklin gave his reaction and discussed when we might see Thompson suit up in the Note. (Bleedin’ Blue)

Speaking of Thompson, he’s leaving behind quite the family at the University of Connecticut. Although he was only there for two seasons, Thompson made a big impact with the Huskies in his brief time. (Hartford Courant)

As usual, the people in charge of the game (any game really, but clearly hockey in this instance) refuse to make decisions that would actually benefit the game. The Blues have gotten bit on the offside rule and may continue to do so as the GM’s shot down a proposal to tweak the rule. (NHL)

After doing everything possible to keep the Coyotes where they are, the NHL commissioner has finally agreed they cannot stay where they are. They may not be going as far as you might think though, at least if he continues to get his way. (ESPN)

Have a great day Blues fans!

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