The 2018-19 St. Louis Blues barely have their skates laced up and we are all doom and gloom about the season. However, there might be good reason to worry with this team.
The St. Louis Blues still have every opportunity to make the playoffs. They still have every chance to turn this season around, prove they can be a contender and take us all on a joyful ride. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself as much as anyone, but I really do believe that.
However, despite the fact that I am normally Mr. Positive (as much as is possible in reality) and as much as I preach patience, there are worrying signs with this team. What is more, the things that are troublesome are not new and do not involve new players at the heart of the issue.
The discouraging part of the Blues opening to 2018-19 is that the veteran players, both in age and service years to the team, are the issue right now. Even more troublesome, it is the defensive core that is a major issue.
Recently, we covered how the defense needs a more nose to the grindstone mentality. It is early in the season and things could change, but you can’t completely change your nature. If it is not within you to make yourself uncomfortable in order to make your opponent uncomfortable, that is unlikely to change within 82 games.
The return of Joel Edmundson will help, since he is more that type of player. However, one man can only do so much if the rest of his defensive partners play soft.
Again, we keep harping on it, but it bears repeating. It is troublesome that these issues exist because these are veterans. This is not the forwards who have the excuse of needing time to gel with rookies or new faces.
The defenders have all been there for years, with the exception of Vince Dunn who is in his second NHL season. Alex Pietrangelo seems lost right now.
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I have never been against his captaincy in the past, but right now he looks incapable of leading. He is not playing well himself and, visually, seems to make no attempt to make others aware of what they need to do to improve. Perhaps he does in the locker room, but we are not privy to such things.
Jay Bouwmeester continues his slide. As much as I have defended him, it is clear that he has never been the same player since first getting injured with the Blues and having his iron man streak ended. He’s still better than average positionally, making it senseless to talk about trading him when he’s better than the alternatives in the minor leagues. That said, it is becoming impossible to defend him when he cannot clear the puck in key moments. Though he’s OK positionally, he is not strong on the opponent and loses track of his man too often lately.
Chris Butler should not be in the NHL at the moment. The fact that he has been one of the team’s better players shows what kind of mess the Blues are in at the moment. Butler is not a bad player, but he’s not that great. He plays his butt off, but the Blues have had that in the past. That was why we were so excited about all this depth because we were not going to have to rely on guys playing their butt off on the first or second lines. Instead, we were supposed to have players in spots that suited them much better. Mike Yeo singing Butler’s praises is fine, but also points the spotlight at how lax everyone else has been.
The forwards do not get off with a pass either. Many, including myself, thought Alexander Steen would flourish in a third line role. His responsibilities would not be as high so he could really focus each time out. That focus has not shown up yet. In two games, Steen is a minus-4. Coming off a career worst minus-11, that’s not the way you want to start.
Offensively, it’s been a mess too. Steen’s terrible pass on a power play led directly to a shorthanded goal in the opening game of the season. It has not been much better after that. While it is still incredibly early, both of Steen’s possession metrics are currently in the negative 20’s. Compare that with his career low, which is -9.5 and it does not paint a pretty picture.
Additionally, as of writing this, Steen has yet to throw an official hit. He’s not known as a banger, but he was the team’s best defensive forward at one point. Even if you want to pass that mantle on to Pat Maroon, you can still take someone into the wall in a corner battle.
The chemistry Steen and Tyler Bozak had in preseason also seems to have vanished. Perhaps it is because they are trying to help the defenders out, but neither are doing a great job yet. Bozak is minus-3 and in the negative teens for possession metrics (Corsi, Fenwick).
Steen is not completely to blame either. As said, the forwards as a group, do not get a pass. And speaking of passes, they seem incapable of hitting a pass to the blue line at the moment. So many of the odd-man rushes given up are because the forwards could not put the puck on the stick of the person at the blue line and then the opponent is off to the races. At the moment, it feels like they should abandon the idea of passing back out to the blue line, even as ridiculous as that seems.
And speaking of ridiculous, the team seems cursed when it comes to shots. We seem to say this every year and it only gets worse, but I am not sure I’ve ever seen a team capable of missing the net so frequently. This problem is team wide. Even the new guys are missing the net from angles where it should not be possible. It makes you wonder, even if for just a moment, whether the team is cursed and anyone who slips on that sweater is immediately affected.
Look, it’s so early in the season that we have to attempt not being so frustrated by all this. The one thing most of us feared – special teams – is actually above the league average in both penalty kill and power play through the first week of the season. Maybe that shows how crazy the league has been or maybe it shows improvement by the Blues – time will tell.
It is just difficult to deal with when these things are not the product of goaltending, as so many want to believe. They are not the product of having new players. They are the product of laziness, not paying attention to detail and a lack of work ethic on every shift. Those are all things that have existed on past teams (I cannot count the amount of times we heard the term “buy-in”). It should have improved with new players, not gotten worse.
It begs the question of whether coaching is the issue or not. I am not currently advocating for Yeo’s job to be taken, but he better get this team on the right path quickly. With this amount of talent available, he will be the one to pay if this continues the entire year.