St. Louis Blues Must Turn Enterprise Center Into A Fortress

The St. Louis Blues used to protect their barn like nobody’s business, forming a formidable place to play. Things have not been so rosy lately.

The St. Louis Blues used to be able to defend their home ice with the best in the league. It made the old Arena and then Kiel Center/Saavis Center/Scottrade Center a tough place for opponents to come. Now, it has been just a building.

The Blues success on their home ice has been dwindling over the last few seasons. Of course, it has not been terrible, but just is not that imposing place you would like it to be.

In 2017-18, the Blues went 24-17-0. The previous season, they were almost the same at 24-12-5. 2015-16 was the same win total at 24-13-4.

None of those are bad win totals, but a good team can win more. A great team should win more. Even if you only get up to 27 wins at home, that is an extra six points that can be the difference between home ice or not or even making the playoffs or not as we saw in 2017-18.

The Blues have had a tough time of it early on in 2018-19 too. As of writing, the Blues have opened the year 1-2-1 before their first real road trip. That’s two games with no points and one game with points dropped.

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You can make the argument that you can’t be dropping points anywhere, so the home record doesn’t factor into it. I disagree with that based on the schedule.

As we have seen in recent years, a great start to the season does not automatically mean you will have a good end or even make the playoffs. You can certainly put yourself out of the playoffs with a bad start, however. The fact that the Blues play so many of their early season games at home is a perfect example of why they must be able to defend their home ice.

If you combine the end of October and all of November, the Blues have 10 of their next 16 games on home ice. Those are not your traditional “must win” games, but I would argue they are better darn well win games. You go .500 in those games and you are setting yourself up for failure later on in the season.

We need look no further than the 2008-09 team for an example of why you can’t be throwing away early points. That team made the playoffs, but it took such a furious push in the spring that they had no energy for the second season and got swept. That team proved that a good home record could save a middling team too. They went 14-4-3 from January to the end of the season in that big playoff push.

The Blues went 9-9-2 at home in the months prior to January in that season. That further proves that getting victories at home early can save you a lot of energy later on in the year.

Beyond that, you provide yourself so much more energy to thrive off of when you play well at home. Even the most hardcore Blues fan would have to admit their home arena is not always the loudest or buzzing with the most energy. However, when the team plays well, that place can rock. That noise and that energy can give the team an extra surge when they need it most. As with most fan bases, they need a reason to be enthused though.

If you have a 50/50 shot of winning at home, there is less enthusiasm because fans have been given no reason to think the team will pull it off. Get that up to 60/40 or higher and you’re going to have an intimidating building again.

The Blues have to find a way to get more wins at home. 1-2-1 is not cutting it and .500 hockey will definitely not get you into the postseason.

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The Blues have enough talent to overcome a slow start, but they absolutely have to win at home. You are going to have a lot more road games in the future if you have a lot of home games at the start. You might as well get as much cushion as you can for later on.

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