St. Louis Blues: Pros And Cons From Game 25 Against Anaheim

The St. Louis Blues seem to have found themselves in a dangerous rut of late. They play one great game followed by a game that is not so great. Unfortunately, the game against Anaheim was the latter.

Given the St. Louis Blues little streak they’ve been on, perhaps we should have seen the performance coming. Still, after three long days off, fans were hopeful that the team would come out hard.

It was quite the opposite. The Blues continued a slightly disturbing trend of following up one good game with a bad one. You could say that bad is too harsh, but it was not a good performance overall.

The Blues followed up their eight goal performance against Edmonton by getting shutout against Nashville. They then turned around after beating up Minnesota with a rather mundane game against Anaheim.

St. Louis just did not seem to have it from the start. It took a special performance from a fourth line player to even make a game of it by the end.

The Blues will rebound and come back in the next one. For now, it was just a disappointing return to the ice after what seemed like almost a week off.

Cons:

Another slow start.

For whatever reason, the Blues are making a habit of slow starts. Whether they win the games or not, the first five to 10 minutes seem to be sluggish and without real purpose on the offensive end.

St. Louis has gotten away with it by having good defense in some moments or outscoring their problems in others. They need to find ways to come out of the gates with more pep though.

Pros:

The Blues battled back.

Say what you will about their overall play, which left a lot to be desired, they did not give up. We’ve said before that plenty of Blues teams in recenty history would have just packed it up at 3-0 and it would have ended 4-0.

Instead, the Blues kept plugging away while they eventually found their game toward the end. Unfortunately, by then, it was a little late.

Cons:

Jake Allen is not getting support.

Whether it is offensively or defensively, the Snake is having some tough times in terms of support.

The problem is not that he’s playing poorly. He is being served up on a platter.

Fans that already dislike goalies or Jake in particular will point to his stats being poor. His save percentage is around .900 right now and was exactly .900 against the Ducks.

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That’s definitely not great. However, there is nothing he can do about many goals.

Against Anaheim, one goal went off a forward’s glove and the other two were almost perfect set ups, with players open on the back door.

Eventually, Blues defenders either need to mark better or disrupt passes more.

Pros:

Kyle Brodziak’s third period.

The Blues fourth line continues to make a case for being moved up to the third line. While much of that is a matter of semantics, the team should consider giving this line more minutes.

Brodziak proved why by scoring two goals in the span of less than four minutes.

The first one was good positioning. Brodziak was in front of the net and available to put home a puck that did not make it all the way through.

The second one was even better, with a strong push to the net and then just chipping it over the goaltender.

He’s not got three goals in two games and six for the season. A very bright spot in an otherwise dim game.

Cons:

The enjoyment level.

Look, everyone has bad games and games that make a fan upset. However, there have been a couple games this year where there was just no enjoyment to take from the game.

This was one of those games. Even when the energy line started scoring, you just never got the feeling the Blues were back in it.

St. Louis did not play awfully, but it just lacked that spark. We’ve seen them have games they were down even more, but the jump and drive was there to at least make it entertaining. It just was not there against the Ducks.

Some of that does rest with the fans. We were all jonesing for hockey like an addict needing a fix. Then the Blues come out and give us much less than any of us wanted. It felt like a kick in the teeth.

Overall Thoughts:

The Blues have to find some sort of consistency.

Their special teams are falling apart. They get good games to get our hopes up and then crush them with another soul-sucking 0-for performance on the power play.

Their penalty kill is suffering right now as well. They allowed two of the three goals to come while shorthanded. St. Louis was also in the box way too much, giving the Ducks six power plays.

The Blues are just too hot and cold at the moment. You have ups and downs throughout the season, but this is somewhat ridiculous.

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Everyone knew scoring eight was unrealistic, but then to get shutout? To come out so poorly after having lots of days to rest and a solid offensive game is very disappointing.

As mentioned, this is not a harbinger of doom. St. Louis will be fine and is still one of the better teams in the league. It’s just frustrating to see them crush teams sometimes and then others look completly inept.

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