The St. Louis Blues have not gotten off to the greatest of starts to the 2018-19 campaign. They are quickly using up the good will they built up over the summer with underwhelming performances.
The St. Louis Blues have played two games in the 2018-19 season. They have lost both and not looked great in doing so.
The Blues came out, for the second night in a row and looked good in the first period. In fact, they raced out to a commanding 2-0 lead over the Chicago Blackhawks.
However, as they did countless times in previous seasons, they blew that two-goal lead. Though they recovered several times, it just was not in the cards to find a victory for the first time in the year.
St. Louis showed some grit and determination coming back from a 3-2 deficit and even regaining the lead in the third period. However, they just are not doing the little things that make championship teams. The frightening thing is the problems they are having are not necessarily just about getting new players on the same page as the old.
Pros: Scoring First And Often
After a rather embarrassing loss to Winnipeg on day one of the season, it was important to get the offense going. The Blues did just that.
They peppered the net with shots right from the get go and created a lot of good chances. They finally broke through with a Colton Parayko slap shot for a power play goal. Less than three minutes later, Vladimir Tarasenko would score the first of two goals for him.
St. Louis would add two more goals in the third period, including a second power play goal.
There was plenty to dislike about the offense as well, but the fact they put pressure on and cracked the goaltending several times was important for the psyche of this team and the fanbase early on.
Cons: Weak Defending And Poor Zone Protection
We’ll start with the second one first. By poor zone protection, I’m not talking just about defending your zone. Sometimes to protect your zone, you need to exit it smoothly. The Blues did anything but that.
The captain, Alex Pietrangelo had several chances to clear pucks and did not. It cost the team a goal. Jay Bouwmeester failed to clear the puck three times on one play and that cost the team a goal.
This is nothing new, so it should not shock us. It is extemely disappointing to see it happen time and time again, though. Nobody likes icing calls, but at this point, if you have faith in your faceoff taking, you have to just get it out by any means necessary.
Moving on, the defending by this team is simply weak right now. Jake Allen haters will have their say, but if you overlook the shoddy defending, you do so at your own peril. Both the television and radio crews pointed it out.
Right now, Blues defenders have no interest in putting a body on their mark, nor do they intend to disrupt shot attempts either. Their main goals are to defend a zone and hope to block shots, neither of which they are doing a good job of anyway, which only compounds the matter.
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One of Chicago’s goals saw Jonathan Toews go basically untouched to score on a rebound from in close. The fact there were defenders around that just watched him do so puts a pit in your stomach. How in the world do you let one of the game’s best sit, untouched, on the doorstep of your goal?
As fans, we are not foolish. Nobody expects this team to be the New Jersey Devils defensive core of the late 90’s. But for crying out loud, put some ferocity in there.
It is extremely worrying that these are all players the Blues have had. They made no additions to the blue line, so you cannot use the excuse of working new players into the system. The defenders are just bad, as a unit, right now and that’s discouraging since they’ve been here.
Pros: Getting Production From The Top
It sucks to lose and it sucks that you could have and should have won. That said, it is encouraging to get point production from the guys you expect to get it from.
Tarasenko led the team in shots for the second game in a row and leads the team in goals with two just in this game. He could have easily had more if not for some good saves and missed nets.
On top of that, Ryan O’Reilly got into the act as well. Though O’Reilly has yet to score, he is already proving a valuable asset in setting guys up. He now has four assists in two games, with three of them coming against the Blackhawks.
O’Reilly was masterful in the faceoff circle again too, winning 87% of his draws. That helps out the offense quite a bit, though there were a couple missed chances to keep the puck in the zone by losing key draws.
Cons: Making Opponent Goaltenders Look Like Superstars
If you only looked at the stats, you would not think twice about the game Cam Ward had. He allowed four goals and had a save percentage below .900. That does not sound all that great.
That said, the Blues should have had six or seven goals in this contest. Instead, they were foiled by a goaltender for the second night in a row, with the Blues making them look much better than they were.
Ward is a quality goaltender, with a Stanley Cup to his name. However, the Blues managed to make him look like a sure Hall of Fame goaltender on several opportunities.
You are going to run into hot goalies during the year. The Blues always seem to make the other guy look great, even when they are backups though. Eventually you have to do the opposite and make good goalies look bad.
Pros: Pat Maroon
While we all know the Blues will have to pay him if they want him to stay, the signing of Pat Maroon is looking like the steal of the decade after two games. He’s basically doing everything any hockey fan wants of a player.
He’s going to the front of the net and causing havoc in the paint. He’s mixing it up with opponents, while playing quality minutes, not the usual eight minutes you get from fourth line players.
Just focusing on this game alone, Maroon got an assist and, in the eyes of fans, got a huge assist without being credited for one in the stats. Maroon set up Tarasenko’s goal by smashing Brent Seabrook to the boards, which freed the puck for Vlady to score even though Maroon never touched it.
Not only did the Blues score, but this was payback from a long time ago. Ever since the Blackhawks had the “Wakey Wakey Backes” hit, there has never been a really good payback. This fulfilled that and more, and just as important, it was clean.
Maroon is a true hockey fan’s dream, combining skill with old fashioned grit.
Overview
The Blues got an important point, but losing to Chicago is always a gut punch. Allowing a hat-trick to Toews is a kick to the crotch.
Eventually the Blues will get a win. Eventually they will iron some of these things out. What is extremely disheartening is the repeat offenses.
The power play has improved, but we need results. Passing an eye test is simply not good enough right now. The team did have two power play goals, but in reality they failed pretty hard on at least three of their other attempts.
The passing is not awful as a whole, but it is awful at the wrong times. Right now, the Blues seem incapable of hitting a pass to the blue line at key times. Too often it goes nowhere near the intended target and leads to breaks the other way. I don’t care what you think of the goaltender, that’s simply not fair to put anyone in those situations repeatedly.
On top of that, it is discouraging that an overall good performance by Allen will be swept under the rug because it doesn’t fit the narrative so many have. The radio broadcasters said that the Blackhawks could have had seven or eight goals, easily, if not for Allen. So, like Ward, he had a good game even if the stats say otherwise. He is not being helped out by his defensemen.
It is far too early in the year to panic about any of this. It is just a slap in the face to the realities of this season. Maybe the Blues are not as good as we hoped. Maybe Yeo has not made the necessary changes or attempted to and is incapable of enforcing his will on the players.
Or, hopefully, it is simply a couple bad games to start a season. Let us all hope that is it, because this division is too good to have too many points slip away.