St. Louis Blues: Fans And Media Must Stop Playing Favorites

The St. Louis Blues are in the midst of a team-wide crisis, causing a lack of confidence and purpose. However, though it is across the board, fans and media tend to overlook some when discussing shortcomings.

The St. Louis Blues poor run of form to begin the 2018-19 season is no secret at this point. In fact, the finger pointing is almost second nature as we approach the second month of play soon.

However, both media and fans fall into their own traps. Though everyone is willing to acknowledge the problems are team wide, there are certain names interestingly left out of the conversation.

Of course, everyone’s punching bag is Jake Allen. I could probably write an article per day about the nonsense seen in social media about the Snake, but I’ve just come to the conclusion that it is all bias now. Those people will never even entertain the possibility that Allen is not at fault for anything and everything wrong with the team.

Moving on to other areas of the team, the focus I have noticed is that on Vladimir Tarasenko. It is also a lack of focus on Jaden Schwartz.

I think the focus on Tarasenko is somewhat unfair. Yes, he could be doing more and should be doing more. There is little arguing that.

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If he truly aspires to be a consistent 40 goal scorer, and maybe even 50, he needs to become more focused and consistently dangerous. That said, fans and media expect too much. He has three goals and seven points in nine games.

Those are not eye-popping numbers, but he has always been streaky. To expect him to come out of the gates on fire when the rest of the team has been terrible is too much. The fact that Tarasenko’s name popped up even more the day after he actually scored is equally disappointing.

Conversely, where is the discussion about Schwartz? Schwartz has been even more disappointing and has fewer stats. Through nine Blues games and seven played for Schwartz, he has one goal and three points. If we are going to demand more from Tarasenko, you have to do it from Schwartz as well and yet you hear nothing. There is not a disparaging word about him. He is forgotten or purposely omitted.

First off, I don’t think offense is generally the problem with this current group. They have scored four goals or more and still lost three times already.

The problem I have is how so many pick and choose who they are going to pick on. Tarasenko is more widely known, so media know he will be a hotter topic. Fans have this ridiculous notion that he should be scoring a goal per game, when that is just unrealistic. Yes, there are players on that pace now, but the last time a player had over 80 goals is so far in the rearview mirror it’s not even a comparison any more.

Meanwhile Schwartz gets to live and perform in almost anonymity. He is referred to as the Blues most important player. That is generally backed up by the team’s poor record without him. Even so, fans and media should expect more from him as well.

For all his talents, Schwartz has never scored 30 goals. There were years you could say he would have, had he been healthy, but he did not and was not. It is not a fair standard to expect one player to be a 50 goal scorer but not fault another great player for failing to get 30.

Both of them are talented forwards and both could/should be doing more to score. That’s been true in the past and is true this season too.

We are all disappointed in this current season. We are all disappointed in performances.

However, this is a team issue. No one forward is more or less involved in being a problem. If we are going to discuss players that must step up, it has to be across the board.

We all have our bias, but everyone has to step up their games. It is not just the handful of names that make for hot takes on radio.