The St. Louis Blues came out in their season opener for 2017-18 and took care of business. It did not take long for that win to lose a little bit of its luster.
The St. Louis Blues entered the 2017-18 season with a lot of question marks. They had plenty of injuries and were playing with some very odd line combinations.
Once the puck dropped, the worries started to melt away. The Blues came out and took care of business and picked up two points to start the year.
It might not have all gone to plan. The Blues had a two goal lead disappear the Pittsburgh Penguins.
They played well defensively overall, but allowed four goals. They played well offensively, but there were holes in their game such as a paltry power play that has to improve.
The bottom line was the team won the game. It was a feel good win.
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Regardless of how it happened, the Blues won. They beat the defending Stanley Cup champions. They beat the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Even when they are not the defending champions, that is usually a pretty good feat. Pittsburgh is one of the most consistent franchises of the last decade. When you are able to beat that kind of franchise, you have to take every drop of good you can out of it.
Unfortunately, the sparkle came off the win and it did not take very long. In fact, the Blues did not even get a full 24 hours to soak it all in.
The Penguins took on the Chicago Blackhawks less than 24 hours after losing to the Blues. It did not end well.
After allowing five goals to St. Louis, it got even worse in Chicago. The Penguins lost 10-1 and it might not have even been that close.
You can chalk this up to facing two tough teams right at the start of the year. You can chalk it up to trying to play your backup goaltender so early in the year. Chalk it up to whatever you want.
The bottom line is that the Blues win doesn’t look so great now. We have to open our eyes to the idea that the Penguins are just not as good as we thought they would be.
Pittsburgh is going to be a playoff team this year. They just have too much talent.
However, they might end up being like the Chicago Cubs. They might have a severe championship hangover that doesn’t dissipate until well into the season. With that in mind, we might not know as much about the Blues as we hoped we did.
We hoped that we had seen a really good team effort against a championship team. We hoped we had seen the Blues effectively shut down a high-octane offense with their depleted defense.
Now, we do not know if that was the case or not. The Blues really only allowed four goals by being stupid, but how good is Pittsburgh right now?
The defending champions have only scored five goals in two games, with two or three gifted to them. They have allowed 15 goals.
The Blues had to work for every goal they got. Chicago seemed like everything they chucked at the net went in and, quite frankly, the score could have been worse.
Overall, the Blues still won their opener. They still defeated a team with lots of talent.
We just don’t know if that talented team was even close to full steam. Sure, you can still say you beat Pittsburgh, but was it really Pittsburgh? Was it really the team we thought we beat?
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Who knows at this point. You would not think a team like Pittsburgh would implode defensively the way they have through two games.
Hopefully, it was just a bad night in Chicago. Everyone has them now and then.
I am still going to enjoy and take a lot out of the win, on the road, where the Blues showed grit in not giving up and winning the game. I just wonder how good Pittsburgh is after they got destroyed not long after.