St. Louis Blues Pros And Cons From Game 29 Vs. Florida

The St. Louis Blues keep going up and down. Thankfully for the fans in attendance and those watching at home, the Blues ended the night on an uptick.

The St. Louis Blues just cannot make up their minds about how they are going to play in the 2018-19 season. One game they look great, the next just awful – truly awful.

Fortunately, in game 29, the Blues managed to end the night on December 11 with a victory. They certainly did not make it easy on anyone.

The Blues went through two periods without looking like they were going to do anything. They were not playing bad, but we have said that plenty of times and they always seem to find a way to fall behind.

St. Louis was unfortunate not to take the lead off a fluky goal that went in off the official. The rule states the puck cannot deflect directly in off a referee, but if you want to split hairs, it looked like it went in off the Florida Panthers goaltender. That’s neither here nor there at this point.

Of course, the Blues managed to allow the first goal, despite only allowing five shots in the first period. As tends to happen, the Blues failed to get the puck out of their own zone and an opposing forward got in behind the defenders.

Thankfully, unlike past games, the Blues managed to not give up.

After messing up up a shorthanded breakaway, the Blues managed to tie up the game with an Ivan Barbashev goal. They immediately took the lead by capitalizing on a turnover.

David Perron scored his second goal to put the Blues up by two. Then, it felt like the bottom was going to fall out.

The Blues gave up two quick goals to allow the Panthers to tie it up. We have seen this before and it never ended well.

For once, luck was on the Blues side. The game winning goal was a blocked shot that fell right to Brayden Schenn who backhanded it in.

These sorts of bounces don’t usually go the Blues way. Luckily, they did on this night.

Cons: Terrible Shot Bounces

I highly doubt there is an official stat on this. However, I would be shocked if the Blues did not lead the lead in shots that miss bouncing out of the zone.

We have long known about the Blues ability to miss the net. It continues to hit new and hair-pullingly frustrating heights.

In the first period alone, the Blues had at least three and maybe four shots that missed the net, rebounded off the endwall and exited the zone. It is bad enough to not hit the goal, but you immediately lose all momentum when that happens. For a team that struggles to enter the offensive zone, you just cannot have that.

None of it makes any sense either. With the exception of Colton Parayko, nobody on this team has a blistering shot.

Nobody is calling them weak, but they are not scaring many goaltenders with the power. The fact it ends up with enough steam to exit the zone with some speed is amazing and would be funny if it was not our team.

There are so many wasted chances with this team. In one game prior to this one, the Blues actually missed the net over 20 times. You just can’t do that. Make the goaltender make a save, for crying out loud.

Pros: Robert Thomas

We still do not know the ceiling of Robert Thomas. Is he going to be a playmaker or a scorer or just an energy guy? In this game, he showed flashes of all that.

Thomas only ended up on the score sheet for one assist. It was a great play to set up the first goal.

After a poor pass on a two-on-one went behind Thomas, he fished it out of the corner and then blew by the defender. Then, he tossed it back out front and Barbashev would score.

That was not all Thomas was doing though. He made a beautiful move to completely fake a defender out earlier in the game. Unfortunately, he tried to jam the shot five-hole instead of continuing on and trying to flip it over the glove.

In addition to that, Thomas made some great efforts on the back check too. The one he got called for a penalty on was complete horse puckey. It was a great defensive effort to deny the puck and, instead, he got penalized. Fortunately, the Panthers did not score on that since it would have been a kick in the gut for the team.

Thomas continues to get better and better. He has seven helpers on the season. If he continues to show this type of all around game, he’s going to be a special player.

Cons: Power Play

Seriously, why can’t we have nice things? For a good, long stretch, the Blues had one of the better power plays in the NHL. Now, they have gone back the other direction.

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St. Louis had two power plays in the first period and got a grand total of four shots. That’s one shot per minute, if you had two normal power plays. Maybe that doesn’t sound too bad to some, but it is extremely ineffective. You have to generate shots and get second chances.

If it takes you a full minute to even get one shot, let alone going one and done, you’re not going to be able to accomplish anything.

Making matters worse is the fact the Blues had a four minute power play on their very first chance. They had two shots on that one and then two on the next two minute opportunity.

We’ve seen the unit look much worse, but it’s getting to an embarrassing point where you don’t think the team will even attempt to score. Even the announcers commented how many quality chances the Blues passed up. They just keep cycling and cycling until there’s nothing left to do.

In a game where you had 33 shots, but really did not threaten much outside of the actual goals that went in, you need your power play to step it up. It’s just as disjointed as the team at the moment.

Pros: The SPS Line

Ok, nobody really calls it this. It’s more that I have no idea whether the team considers this line the first line or the second one.

Regardless, the team’s best line from a production standpoint and a consistency standpoint was the one with David Perron, Brayden Schenn and Jaden Schwartz.

While I am personally getting tired of Schwartz’ fragility, it cannot be argued the impact he seems to have on this team. He should be more than a 30 goal scorer, but even when he is not scoring, he seems to be the straw the stirs the drink.

For the past couple years, Schenn has been one of the Blues best players. He is not getting the goals at the same pace as he did last year, but he’s still doing all those little things outside of that. He was battling and digging pucks off walls. Schenn just seems relentless when he’s on top of his game, which he was on this night.

Maybe he was a little fortunate in how the puck came to him. Even so, it was all skill to get that puck tucked in on a tight angle.

Then, the frenchie, Perron came up big again. His Blues career has had plenty of ups and downs, but it was good to see a big up after his down saw him benched a game ago.

His first goal was a great bit of skill. He managed to roof the puck on a one-time wrist shot, not allowing anyone to set up. The second one was likely a pass that went off the defender, but you need that kind of luck in this league. The Blues have not had enough of it.

Who knows how long this line will stick together. We have barely seen lines last an entire game, much less multiple games.

They seemed to feed off one another nicely, so maybe they will build something.

Overview

This team continues to be maddeningly frustrating. We will all take any win at this point, just so we can go to bed in a happy mood. Nevertheless, it continues to boggle the mind how they can be such polar opposites period to period and game to game.

If they had this kind of performance against Vancouver, the end result is respectable at the very least. Maybe they even sneak out a win instead of having their doors blown off.

Sadly, we have no reason to believe this Blues team will be the one we see against Colorado in their next game. In fact, history tells us it will not be.

It has to be though. These players cannot allow themselves to go backward again if they have any personal pride.

Maybe they lose the next game, but you cannot lay another egg, either on the scoreboard or in their performance. They need more wins, even if they are not going to be a playoff contender.

This team is simply too talented, regardless of how they are going right now, to be as bad as we have seen. They have proven it in their wins. Now, they just need to group a few together.