St. Louis Blues Have Issues But Are Not Far Away From Contention
By Todd Panula
For 49 seasons the St. Louis Blues have not come home with hockey’s biggest prize. Despite belief to the contrary, they might not be as far away at the moment as many want to believe.
The St. Louis Blues have come up empty at the end of the season on 49 tries. They made the Stanley Cup Final three straight seasons when they were an expansion team. Sadly, they won no games in three tries.
The funny thing is the Blues have had more talented teams in later years and not come as close. The best we’ve seen was conference finals in 1986, 2001 and 2016.
2016-17 was a disappointing year on many levels, the least of which was a second round exit against the Nasvhille Predators. However, though many people believe the Blues took a step backward, they might not be as far off as many want to believe.
Before I even get into my argument, let me stop several counter arguments before they start. The Blues do have issues.
By no means are they a perfect team, nor should they be anything close to a championship favorite in 2017-18. They have holes to fill and things to clean up.
The Blues must improve on a truly awful powerplay. They need more consistent scoring and they have to find ways to play a full 60 minutes.
That said, there were too many nights in 2016-17 where the Blues were their own worst enemy. They had a terrible stretch where they could not score, got bad goaltending and could not defend.
The team would start off well and not be able to finish. Other times they would not show up for most of the game only to attempt a mad comeback in the final ten minutes or so.
Despite all the negatives though, they still had their chances. They finished one point shy of having 100 points or more in the fourth straight season.
Shockingly, the Blues scored more goals this past regular season than in 2015-16. 2015-16 saw the Blues barely finish behind Chicago for the division and go all the way to the conference finals if any have short memories.
St. Louis finished in third in the division this past season, but almost came all the way back to claim the second spot. They also fended off the Predators for the final divisional spot.
The playoffs, on the surface, gave us plenty to complain about. St. Louis had to rely on Jake Allen to almost single-handedly carry them past Minnesota.
The Blues also did not put up enough of a fight, at times, against Nashville. In the grand scheme, they were closer to the Predators than just about anyone else except Pittsburgh, who obviously defeated them.
St. Louis was in every single game, no matter how poorly they played. They only got outscored 15-11. That is the same margin as the Anaheim Ducks, who were outscored by Nashville 19-15. The vaunted Chicago Blackhawks were outscored 13-3 in four games.
Nashville hung in pretty well, overall, with one of the best teams we have seen over the last decade. Pittsburgh is always a favorite and Nashville showed very little in the way of first-time jitters.
Of course, in the end, the Blues still lost and most would have picked them to lose each progressing round. That doesn’t mean they could not have won.
The Blues had a good record against Anaheim during the regular season. Perhaps they advance, the same as Nasvhille. The Blues also blanked the Penguins in their win in Pittsburgh during the season, so it is not unfathomable to take them down too.
The Predators won and deserved to make the finals. Still, the Blues left a lot to be desired. A fully charged, rolling Blues team would have made the difference when things were so close as it was.
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There is no doubt the Blues still have issues. They need a true top center. They have to find someone capable of scoring along a similar pace as Vladimir Tarasenko.
Despite all their issues – issues that we’ve been bringing up for years, by the way – they have been knocking on the door already. They really are not as bad as so many make out and are better than some give credit for.
For all their faults, they keep on pushing the door to the upper echelon. They just have not managed to take that final step to break the door open.
The Blues have things going against them. Chicago will still be Chicago, just a year older. Nasvhille is going to be just as talented next year, as is Minnesota. Winnipeg is knocking on the door and Dallas reloaded.
The Blues have had the misfortune of having to go against some of the toughest divisional opponents for years though. If Chicago was not in their way, it was Detroit. Dallas was good in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, the same time as the Blues.
Even so, no matter how much fault we find with individual players, they have managed to contend with all those “more talented” teams.
Stats will say otherwise, but the eye test keeps showing that when the Blues play their game and are on their game, they can beat anyone. They just have to find that mixture that will go out and do it more often than not in key moments.
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That is the hard part to get right though.
Each year is its own bag of tricks, chalk full of issues, problems and challenges to deal with. What went wrong in 2016-17 might not be the problem in 2017-18. In the end, this team has the talent to do good things.
They need to improve and will, but they are not taking as big a step backward as so many believe. The Blues remain on the cusp for now. So, it is up to the GM and the players to make those final steps happen.