St. Louis Blues: Mike Yeo Has No Vision Beyond Today

The St. Louis Blues have rarely gotten so much coverage and buzz in print media and radio as they are right now. However, management and staff probably wish that was not the case.

The St. Louis Blues, and most notably their head coach, have no current direction. They are a team being pulled by opposite poles and Yeo is doing little to nothing to change that.

Personally, I have done my best to stick up for the choices made by the current staff. As pointed out in several recent articles, I made the case that the players themselves have given the coaches little option other than to put out the lineups they have. That opinion changed completely with the projected lineup for October 25th’s game against Columbus.

Prior to that contest, it was projected that Oskar Sundqvist would center a fourth line with Ivan Barbashev and Jordan Kyrou on the wings. While being opinionated, I try to keep a level head about these things, but I about blew my top.

Forget the fact that I had just written an article stating how foolhardy it would be to mix physical players with speedsters on a fourth line. No, what angers me, and several others in the fan community, is this failure to realize when a player offers nothing.

I have nothing against Sundqvist as a person. I have no doubts that he gives his all when he laces up his skates and takes the ice.

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The stats do not lie though. In 70 career games, he has two goals and nine career points. That is low even for a stereotypical fourth line player, let alone someone playing in today’s NHL climate.

On top of that, he does not offer anything the Blues are currently lacking. He has no speed – if anything he will slow down his linemates. He is not a solid defender and, as mentioned, offers nothing in the offensive end.

Sundqvist had a whopping 66.4% of his zone starts in the defensive end with the Blues in 2017-18. Playing on a fourth line skews that a bit, but that also means he is on the ice for a lot of icings and defensive mistakes that keep the team stuck in their own zone.

Circling back to Yeo, for me, what this proves is Yeo is no different than any other coach and actually just as bad. When he was hired, we were promised the influx of youth and the confidence to let them develop.

Instead, you can pick just about every bad thing fans had to say about Ken Hitchcock or Andy Murray and say it about Yeo. Yeo is relying too much on guys with NHL experience with no results for it. He keeps saying he can see it coming and it’s about to break out.

Yeo is becoming more and more notorious for swapping lines. All coaches in the NHL make line changes, so I have normally hated this argument since Blues fans only see their own team. However, Yeo has made it near impossible for anyone new to this team to gain any chemistry since the lines are switched throughout a game and rarely consistent game to game, even with under 10 games played in 2018-19.

Last, but definitely not least, is the sudden cluelessness with what to do with the fourth line and, more importantly, Robert Thomas. As mentioned, Yeo was supposed to bring up this wave of talent and let the players have their time to shine and develop.

Instead, we have seen phantom mistakes punished with benchings and demotions while veterans do the same things and keep playing. I fully realize that contract statuses come into play when it comes to sending guys to the AHL or even benching, but this is the same old story with a different author.

Tage Thompson has done nothing with Buffalo, so maybe he won’t be the player we envisioned. He was never given a real chance in St. Louis though. He’s play a game, get told he wasn’t doing things right defensively and then sat down. Meanwhile, in 2017-18, your supposed best defensive forward, Alexander Steen, was having one of the worst defensive years of his career.

Sammy Blais is going through something similar too. While people I trust did see defensive problems and were calling for him to sit, I did not personally see the issues.  Idefinitely did not see anything he did or did not do as any worse than the rest of this team.

The same is true of Robert Thomas. He played in the team’s first five games and then nothing. He did not light the world on fire, but there was nothing to suggest he lose his spot. This is made worse if the team is honestly going to give Sundqvist a spot over Thomas.

I have always been for earning your time and going through the reps. However, if this staff believes starting a player who has yet to prove to anyone he deserves to be in the NHL is better than grooming a potential top-line center, then I don’t even know what to say anymore.

What irritates me the most about all this is the dipping the toe in the water mindset. You have to go all in, regardless of the direction. Pick a way to play with your fourth line and go. This half-hearted nonsense is infuriating.

Playing an unskilled big man who won’t go to the front of the net with two speedy wings makes no sense. If you insist on playing Sundqvist, bring up players like Chris Thorburn and Jordan Nolan to compliment that style. You’re not going to make Kyrou a physical player just by putting him with a big body in the middle.

The same is true the other way. If you want more skill on your fourth line, put Thomas back in and let this team gel properly. Expecting Thomas to come out on fire while getting seven to eight minutes per game is silly. Show some back bone and let these guys play. Or, if it is the direction you choose, show some conviction and say you need more physicality and just put out the proper players to give you that kind of edge.

Right now, this team has no vision beyond today. By that, I mean they are looking to get through the day and figure something else out tomorrow. That’s not how to win, long term.

I would much rather be told they did not feel certain players were ready as opposed to what we are getting right now. Sadly, there is no reason for any of this to change, so it’ll just be the same jumbled mess until the players pull up their pants and deal with it themselves or there is a coaching change.