St. Louis Blues: What Is Fool's Gold, What Is Real

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NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 10: Carl Gunnarsson /

The St. Louis Blues are off to a fantastic start to the 2017-18 season. It sometimes hard to tell if these things will last or if it is just a good run. We’re here to tell you.

The St. Louis Blues are undefeated a week into the 2017-18 season. While that statement will not be true for an entire month, let alone season, the Blues are playing at a high level.

Making the feat more impressive is that the Blues have had only one home game in this early portion of the season. In fact, the Blues only have two home games in their first nine games. They only have five home games in the entire month of October.

Even with the team’s fast start, there have been other starts that petered out because the team was not that great. The year they began the season in Europe against the Detroit Red Wings springs to mind.

However, this team is not just lucky. They are getting good performances all around.

So, as fans, how are we to tell what is fool’s gold and what is real. Sometimes it can be quite difficult since we are so invested.

The bottom line is that there is more to like about this team than dislike in the early season. If you’ve followed our pros/cons series, you know the Blues are far from perfect.

They appear to be a well coached team though. They believe in the system and it is paying dividends. Keeping it up will be the task, going forward.

So, let’s discuss what is real and what might be fooling our eyes with this team.

Fool’s Gold

Carl Gunnarsson jumps to the top of the list here. Yes, I bag on the guy because he’s been mostly a ghost during his Blues career, and that has little to do with his complexion.

However, he’s gotten off to a hot start. He had zero goals all of last season and only three the year before that.

In four games, he already has two goals. Is he suddenly an offensive dynamo? Not in the slightest.

Credit where it is due, he has jumped up into the play at the opportune times and been rewarded. He’s not going to suddenly become a goal scorer at age 30 though.

He has never scored more than four goals in any one season. Getting two right off the hop sets him up well, but that’s just not his game.

Maybe he gets to five and sets a career record. We should not expect him to be scoring the same way we think of the other defensemen though.

For Real

The Blues record is for real. There is plenty of fool’s gold going around the NHL standings in the early part of the season, but the Blues record is not part of that.

St. Louis probably won’t finish the season atop the Central Division. They are really setting themselves up well though by getting as many points as they can as their division foes struggle out of the gate.

Nobody should expect the Minnesota Wild to stay winless much longer. The Dallas Stars, Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets will not stay sub-.500. That’s all fool’s gold.

The Blues don’t fall into that category though. They are going to have their rough patches over the course of the season, but this team is talented.

Nobody wants to believe that because they don’t have the names on paper. The pieces fit together though.

With very few exceptions, the Blues have not had any real luck so far this season. They won because they outworked their opponent.

St. Louis has made plenty of mistakes and still managed to find ways to win. That is something we have not always seen in the past.

In other years, regardless of who was coach, the Blues would find ways to not get those extra points. They’d lose in OT or throw the game away in the final moments.

We still see plenty of that not being able to close things out part, but they’re overcoming it. We don’t see the heads going down and the here we go again mentality.

Eventually, the Blues will lose. They’ll have a losing streak or two during the season. Their current winning ways are not unsustainable though. They are not punching above their weight class.

The Blues have been competitive in previous seasons when nobody gave them a shot. Nobody is giving them a shot in the Central this year either and they don’t care. They just keep going out there and getting it done.

Despite all the doubters, I think this team finishes second or third in the division and in a reasonably comfortable playoff spot.

Fool’s Gold

On the flip side of the Blues, you have the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights. It seems hard to imagine either of them continuing their hot starts.

Vegas is riding a wave of emotion as they try to lift their city after the tragedy. Being an expansion team, it is hard to get a true read on what their future will be given that we’ve never seen them as a group before.

It just does not seem sustainable for them to remain near the top of their division given the history of expansion teams. The league set up expansion to favor Vegas this time around, but even then they are likely to fall off the pace eventually.

For Real

The chemistry between Jaden Schwartz and Brayden Schenn is on point. Put whichever winger you want with them and they are getting the job done.

Four games into the season, they have a combined 12 points. The duo has also combined for three power play points, which is a big reason Schenn was brought into the team.

Again, not trying to bag on certain guys *coughJaskincough* but they have not had a true second line winger in all of their games. The return of Alex Steen should change that, regardless of whether Steen ends up on that line.

It has not mattered. Their line has been the most consistent and best line for the team in the early part of the season.

Eventually I think that moniker of best line will slide over to Vladimir Tarasenko‘s line as he heats up. Still, it is hard to see Schenn and Schwartz being broken up any time soon.

They play well off each other. They seem to know where the other will be and compliment the other’s game very well. This should last and that should be a duo the team keeps going back to even if they are forced to split them now and then.

Fool’s Gold

The Blues power play is pretty highly ranked so far. They’ve scored on just about 25% of their man-advantages, which puts them around eighth in the league.

There just does not seem to be enough improvement over year’s past to think that will stay that way. It is the same old, same old from that unit, visually, so far.

The top line is great so far, but the top line is overloaded. The Blues second power play unit doesn’t really have anyone you trust to score other than Colton Parayko.

Additionally, they have the same problems from last year. If they get set up, they are dangerous. Once the puck leaves the zone, they have a hard time getting it back in though.

Also, the Blues are giving up a lot of shorthanded chances. They have yet to allow a shorty, but the averages are not on their side if the current trend continues.

None of this is to say the team’s power play is bad. They simply play bad at times.

If this team is going to truly be a contender, their power play has to find consistency instead of being either great or terrible. The Nasvhille series was won and lost on special teams after all.

For Real

The Blues goaltending is the biggest key to the team being where they are this early. The Blues have not been stellar defensively, despite flashes of good play.

Their goaltenders have been brilliant. The stats aren’t as great as we’d like, but they are getting the job done.

Night after night, both Jake Allen and Carter Hutton have done exactly what you want your goalie to do. They have stopped everything they should stop and made some additional saves you didn’t think they would.

There is no reason to believe that will change. Sure, they are going to have bad nights. Every team and every goalie does.

They seem comfortable with their game right now though. They know what kind of defending they will get and they know that an occasional mistake won’t be the end of the world.

Most importantly, both are playing with confidence. That can be fleeting, but both are even keeled players and are not likely to let any one bad performance affect them.

The Blues might rely on their goalies a little too much. They surely did in the 2017 playoffs.

Both of these guys seem up to the task right now though. If you tell me now that they carry the Blues the entire year, I would not say you are crazy. In fact, I’d be surprised if that did not end up being the case when the season ends.

Final Thoughts

It has been an exciting open to the season. I don’t think even the most optimistic of us thought the Blues would play this well.

As said above though, their play does not seem beyond their grasp though. They’re winning exactly because they are staying within themselves. That is why I don’t see them falling off the map as some had predicted.

It is way too early to predict playoff success or talk about seeding. Even excitement needs to be tempered.

Next: St. Louis Must Step Up As Blues Bid On All-Star Game

The NHL is going to even out and teams that we thought would be good will be good. Pittsburgh is not going to finish in last and Vegas likely won’t finish in first.

However, to feel like your team deserves to be in first and could stay near the top of the division is a good feeling. They have to go out and earn it, but if the chemistry stays the same when players get healthy then this team is going to be hard to eliminate.

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