The St. Louis Blues have pulled out of their season staring funk, but all is not well. They cannot build upon any success, which is likely to be their undoing.
The St. Louis Blue seem to have settled into the 2018-19 season after a relatively disastrous start to the year. Unfortunately, they don’t seem like they are going to be anywhere near as good as we had hoped.
A team that had similar aspirations that petered out was the 2017-18 Dallas Stars. They were a team that was loaded with talent but never got their wheels to do anything but spin. Sounds pretty familiar, right?
While the two teams are not exactly mirror images of one another, there are striking similarities. Unfortunately, the biggest one they have is they both missed the playoffs. Ok, the 2018-19 St. Louis Blues have not missed the playoffs yet, but we are getting to the point where we need to realize that is the likely outcome of this season.
It is odd how close the two teams are. Both went into the year with very high expectations following some big offseason changes.
The Blues went more the player route, bringing in Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron, Tyler Bozak and Pat Maroon. The Blues also added big-time prospect, Robert Thomas, to their roster. St. Louis brought in a new backup goaltender in Chad Johnson as well. The only spot they did not make changes to was the defense.
The big changes for Dallas were more behind the bench. After firing Lindy Ruff, the Stars brought in former Blues head coach, Ken Hitchcock. It seemed like a perfect fit. Hitch was a great defensive coach and everyone thought he would tighten things up for a team that was loaded offensively.
The Stars also brought in a new goaltender that was supposed to be the missing piece – that’s another thing that sounds pretty familiar to what Blues fans ask for. Statistically, Ben Bishop was ok but the team just never gelled quite the way the pundits thought.
It was not like the Stars hurt for scoring. They had a two 30-plus goal scorers, three guys with over 70 points and four that had 60 or more.
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We do not yet know how the Blues will finish in scoring, but we know the talent is there to do that. Vladimir Tarasenko can and needs to be a 40 goal scorer. O’Reilly and Brayden Schenn are capable of putting up those kinds of point totals, when healthy. Jaden Schwartz could and should be a 30 goal scorer.
Whether we see those kinds of totals from anyone remains to be seen. It seems unlikely given the sporadic nature of this team, but the comparisons are still there.
Alex Pietrangelo was a Norris Trophy candidate just a short time ago in his career. His defensive deficiencies might keep him from winning one, but John Klingberg is considered one of the best offensive defensemen in the game.
Not only are the players similar, but the results have been similar too. The Stars did not have quite the disastrous start as the Blues, but it was still inconsistent.
Dallas pulled off 11 wins in its first 20 games. The Blues only had seven.
Unlike, St. Louis, the Stars were able to pick up wins in bunches. Their biggest downfall is their losses came in bunches too.
They had two three-game losing streaks ins December, as well as one in November. So, like the Blues, they simply could not gain any ground because they would go into a losing streak immediately after a winning streak. Right now, the Blues simply can’t get any streaks. They win one and then lose one or two and win another.
So, unfortunately, none of this bodes well for the Blues playoff chances. In fact, it makes it harder to believe St. Louis can or will turn it around.
Dallas scored a good amount of goals. They did a decent job of defending and their goaltending was decent. They simply did not get the results and had a few ill-timed injuries.
The Blues are currently dealing with the injuries now, not getting consistent scoring and the defending has been terrible.
The one thing the Blues can hope is they don’t have as bad a month as Dallas had in March. The Stars lost eight games in a row and 12 overall in that month. If you avoid something like that, at least you keep hope alive.
We can all continue to hope, but it’s going to take a massive turnaround by St. Louis to make the playoffs. Dallas seemed more poised to do that kind of thing in 2017-18, but never could. It is disappointing to think the team we have seems even less capable.