St. Louis Blues: Chad Johnson Creating Yet Another Goalie Controversy

The past five years for the St. Louis Blues has been riddled with goaltender controversies, and it may be a key reason the Blues have not had recent postseason success.

Seemingly throughout the entire career of St. Louis Blues goalie Jake Allen, his backup goaltender has outperformed him in long stretches throughout the season. This could be because the Blues are just that good at finding quality goalies, or because Allen is not number one goalie material.

I have always been team Allen. With Brian Elliot, I was team Allen. With Carter Hutton, I was team Allen. With Chad Johnson, I am still team Allen. This may be me wanting to believe that Allen was going to blossom into the player that the Blues thought he could be.

Clearly, this has been Allen’s job to lose for his entire career. The team even moved on from Ben Bishop because they believed in Allen’s talent. This is not to say that Allen cannot be the one to lead the Blues to glory, but he is six seasons into an average career, and he continually allows his understudy to outplay him.

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In recent memory, Allen has gone through stretches in the middle of winter that lasts upwards of a month.

Two years ago, the team sent him home in the middle of the season to get his mind straight before returning to man the pipes ahead of a playoff push.

Speaking of the playoffs, Allen has an impressive postseason resume. He has started 19 games for St. Louis and has allowed 2.10 GAA and has a .922 SV%.

He has only won nine of the 19 games he has started, but aside from the 2015-2016 postseason run where they reached the Conference Finals against the San Jose Sharks, the team in front of him was not a real contender.

The regular season is where the bulk of the issues arise. Statistically, Allen is in the top-five in Blues history in wins, but consistency is his biggest issue. After winning the offseason, the biggest question mark for the Blues was whether or not Allen could be an actual number one.

Early this season, things did not go as planned for Allen or the Blues. I am not ready to pin the poor start on Allen alone. The bulk of the defensemen were severely underperforming and St. Louis was losing as a result of it.

Allen is 4-3-3 this season with a 3.99 GAA and a .879 SV%. The Blues just recently started playing, what I think is the best defensive lineup, (not Jay Bouwmeester) and it has been reflected in the Blues recent record.

Johnson has been on the receiving end of a much better defensive team, winning his last two starts and allowing just one goal. The shutout against the Sharks was impressive. San Jose is one of the premier contenders in the Western Conference, and Johnson stopped all 33 shots that came his way.

Johnson has been a career journeyman in the NHL but has played well when he has a good team in front of him. Playing in six different cities in eight years, Johnson is on a mission to prove that he can be one of the premier backup goalies in the league.

With how he has played recently, this needs to be Johnson’s net until things start to go wrong again for the Blues. This is still Allen’s team, but it is always great to see the backup be able to come into the game and not skip a beat.

Starting goalies has been at the forefront of all Blues fan’s discussions for as long as I could remember, and it is easy to jump on whoever is playing poorly at the time. I am just going to sit back and watch Johnson and the Blues tear up the league for as long as they can.