St. Louis Blues Do Not Look Like Playoff Team Right Now

The St. Louis Blues did everything right in the 2018 offseason. However, unless the team changes its mentality, the end result of 2018-19 will be the same as 2017-18 – missing the playoffs.

The St. Louis Blues knew they had to make some serious changes to their team once they missed the playoffs after the 2017-18 season. They had gone from a top-10 team in many statistical categories such as power play, penalty kill and simply overall record to one that was near the bottom of the league in those same areas.

The Blues did not need a complete overhaul. There were enough pieces to simply tinker with, since the team did have 94 points in 2017-18 and barely missed the playoffs. Change was needed.

As we all know, by now, the Blues went out and made those changes. They shipped out several players that had worn out their welcomes or were on bad contracts.

They brought in some of the better free agents they could find who would all sign for reasonable money and made some big trades when given the chance too. Basically, the Blues won the summer. If there was a Stanley Cup for offseasons, most analysts would have said the Blues won it. Sadly, there is no such award and early returns make the Blues look like they won’t be competing for the real thing this season either.

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There are currently two things going against St. Louis. One, they are playing horrific defense. Two, to the eye, they appear so far behind their rivals, it is hard to be positive.

Focusing on the team itself, there remains hope. As terrible as the defense looks right now, it is hard to tell based on the entire league playing so similarly. The Blues are currently 20th in goals allowed, but that is so fluid that you can’t base much off it other than allowing 20 goals in five games.

The reason there has to be hope is that the defensive group is all veterans that have been with the Blues before. 95% of these guys were on the last two year’s teams that finished 12th and 6th in goals against. We’ve always had a problem with how they defended, but they had proof it worked. So, until we get a larger sample size that the defensive scheme won’t work, we have to assume these guys will work the kinks out.

What makes it hard to fully grasp that hope is the effort level. As fans, we all complain that this guy or that guy doesn’t care or doesn’t skate as hard as they should. Most times it is nonsense. Right now, the team is literally not hitting anyone though. Announcers are making bold comments about not seeing any fight, not seeing guys clear out the net and letting their goaltender get knocked around – physically and mentally – with no recourse.

Some nights you just are not on top of your game. You should always be willing to stick up for teammates and get a little dirty. If this was football or baseball, you’d accuse the Blues of wanting to keep their jerseys pristine the way they play. Only Pat Maroon has shown any kind of leadership in taking opponents to task. You can’t have it be just one person.

Beyond all of that, the reason it feels like this team could miss the playoffs the most is because they are dropping key points and they simply look so far behind their division.

A quick look at the calendar shows that, as of writing this, we are five games into the season and the Blues only trail the best team in the division/conference by four points. Those are not insurmountable odds.

However, you need only ask the Dallas Stars how a bad start to the year can kill you. The Stars have some of the best offensive hockey players in the league. Nevertheless, they finished lower than the Blues because of injury, lack of team fire and a bad start that could not be overcome at the end.

The Blues are in danger of going down that same route. Visually, they just do not look on par with the other Central Division teams.

The aforementioned Stars are looking pretty solid, scoring a lot of early goals and being a general nuisance. The Blues have already been blown out by Winnipeg, though the Jets are struggling out of the gate a little more than some might have guessed. Colorado and Chicago are looking a lot better than anyone anticipated, the Blackhawks in particular, and Chicago has already taken down the Blues in overtime twice, stealing important points.

Nashville is Nashville. Only Minnesota is off to a slow start like St. Louis, but they made the playoffs last season and are not trying to integrate 1/3 of a new roster.

On the positive side, the Central Division could have five teams make the playoffs. You have your guaranteed three teams and a possible two wild card spots.

That’s thin hope though. The Pacific Division has some good teams and will be fighting just as hard to claim those wild card berths.

The expectations coming into this year were high, so perhaps that brings us down even more with a slow start.  But this is beyond just a slow start.  The same old mistakes that frustrated fans in the past are literally stopping the team from winning right now.  You have new players that are making those same mistakes, making you wonder who is to blame for the mistakes in the first place.

The Blues have the talent, but as Mike Yeo said, they are not coming together.  They are not picking each other up and simply not defending well enough.  Winning teams have funks, but the Blues do not look like a good team at the moment.  We can hope they will be and try to look for positives, but the bottom line is they are not a good team and are not as good as anyone in the division at the moment.

Right now, there is so much season ahead that it does none of us any good to dwell too much on this. It’s just going to be a creeping thought that continues to grow if the Blues don’t find a way to have a positive stretch of games.