St. Louis Blues Pros And Cons From Game 48 Vs. Los Angeles

The St. Louis Blues had another golden opportunity to surge ahead in the standings as they push for a playoff spot. They squandered another opportunity, as we have come to expect.

The St. Louis Blues seem to like the Simon and Garfunkle song as a theme to their season. Instead of hello darkness, my old friend, we seem to be continually getting hello mistakes, the Blues old friend.

The Blues had a golden opportunity to make some good ground in the standings in their afternoon affair in Los Angeles. The rest of the teams ahead of them in the standings were either idle or lost.

Instead, we saw the old Blues creep back into the Staples Center and replace the fresher group after the first period. We saw the worst of the worst come right back in and those old, creeping doubts about the makeup of this team were laid bare in front of our eyes.

The Blues raced ahead to a solid 2-0 lead in the first period. They were playing with buzz, energy and physicality. However, as we have come to expect from this group even when they are good, they failed to step on their opponent’s throat.

A late first period goal for Los Angeles did not seem like it would be a back breaker. However, as the game ended up being a one goal difference, you could argue that one made the difference.

As bad as the Blues played in the second period, though, it is hard to argue they deserved anything more than they got. The second period was just atrocious.

St. Louis took four penalties in a row, giving up two consecutive five-on-three power plays to the Kings. They only capitalized on one, but the energy spent was unmistakable.

The Blues best players were not their best players as the team relied on the bottom six to do the majority of the scoring. Additionally, the team’s “leader” was their worst player and was on the ice for all four Kings’ goals.

Maybe the Blues keep up and make a playoff run and maybe they don’t. Games like this give us more cause to be sellers in the trade market rather than trying to add anything.

Cons: The Defenders

The only name you can exclude from this list is Colton Parayko. Parayko did not do anything overly positive to affect the game, but he was not glaringly at fault for much either. Outside of that, the defense for the Blues – or rather the defenders – were atrocious.

Vince Dunn keeps going back and forth as to whether he is going to be a good player or not. He continues to chip in offensively, but his game is looking more that of Kevin Shattenkirk rather than a good, all-around defender.

At times, especially in this game, he resembles a forward more than a defender. His offensive game is fine, but he defends like a forward. He reaches, he stops skating, he grabs and gets caught puck watching. Dunn’s holding penalty did not cost the Blues on the scoreboard, but it shined a spotlight as to his current deficiencies.

Carl Gunnarsson has been a bright spot in the past couple games, but he had one bad moment in this contest. It is perfectly fine that his point streak came to an end, but his defensive error cost the Blues a goal. The initial play was the fault of someone else, who we will discuss later, but the end product could have still been stopped by Gunny. Instead of clearly defending the pass on a two-on-one, he had his stick toward the goal instead of the slot, where the pass was always most likely to go. Gunnarsson realized his mistake in the intermission, but it was too late then. The goal was scored.

Jay Bouwmeester has been the whipping boy of the fans, but he has been one of the team’s better defense first players of late. He looked old and slow again against the Kings. The penalty called against him was weak, but it showcased the poor decision making of this team. Already down a man on a four minute penalty, Bouwmeester got caught reaching and gave the Kings their second five-on-three power play. The Blues killed it off, but they never really recovered the energy.

Last, but not least, Robert Bortuzzo made one of the biggest bonehead plays in the game. His double-minor helped turn the tide for the Kings. They scored mere seconds after Bortuzzo went into the box. Additionally, there was no real need for his stick to be that high. You can argue this point or that, but there is no need to be swinging a stick in the way he did so that it would come anywhere near anyone’s chin.

Pros: Mackenzie MacEachern

There are plenty of reasons to wonder why Mackenzie MacEachern got the call up before Jordan Kyrou or why he is in the lineup over Robby Fabbri. Most of the answers regard him being a fit on the fourth line as opposed to those other speedy, offensive minded

Cons: Alex Pietrangelo

For those wondering why he was not included in the mixed bag of defensive problems, it is because Alex Pietrangelo gets his own category. I have done my utmost to stay off the captain hate bandwagon, but it became impossible during this game.

Your captain does not always have to be a vocal leader or your best overall player. If nothing else, though, he should lead by example in some way, shape or form.

Pietrangelo led in this game, but he led the team right down the toilet. The radio announcers wanted to make it a 50/50 game for Petro since he did get assists on two of the Blues three goals, but they were both secondary assists and had little to do with the ultimate play.

No, this loss falls squarely on the shoulders of the captain. He was on the ice for all four Kings goals and two of the goals were directly his fault.

Earlier we threw shade at Gunnarsson, but it was the earlier mistakes by Pietrangelo that led to that break in the first place. Pietrangelo got abused in this game physically and almost had his head taken off by Jeff Carter. Clearly shaken up, Pietrangelo went in weakly to a 50/50 challenge along the near wall. His pansy attempt to win the puck allowed the Kings to spring the two-on-one and Pietrangelo was too slow to recover. Gunnarsson could have done better to protect the passing lane, but the odd-man rush should never have happened.

Just as egregious was his first mistake on the goal to make it 2-1. Pietrangelo was not responsible for the turnover, but he was responsible for guarding the back door. Instead, this former Norris Trophy candidate looked like a junior player. He was puck watching and went to the far circle to help. However, there were already two players over there to defend, so his presence was unneeded. The pass came across to a wide open, and I mean wide open, Tyler Toffoli and he buried it. Even the best defenders in the league have bad plays, but this is becoming more of a regular thing than not for Pietrangelo.

Pros: The posts and Ryan O’Reilly

Neither of these two things have to do with the other, but I figured I’d smoosh them together here at the end.

The glass half full people (bless you all) will say that the Blues only lost by one and had opportunities to win. That’s not completely untrue, but if not for the great defending of the posts, this game would have been out of reach early on.

The Kings probably should have had the first goal of the game. St. Louis got caught napping in the opening minutes and only a freak play that bounced off Jordan Binnington, from a bad angle, went off the crossbar and somehow stayed out.

Even after that, there were two clear-cut goals that the Kings rang off bars too. One was a wide open chance for Carter that he hit the near post. The other was a blast shot from distance that clanged off the post as well.

Those were the obvious ones. The Kings may have hit other posts too. One thing is for sure, those steel bars were some of the Blues best defenders.

In all seriousness, it is hard to fathom where this team might be without Ryan O’Reilly. You almost feel for him as it seems he is cursed with teams that are not good until he leaves.

That aside, for now, he chucks his guts out there every night. Sometimes he doesn’t get the reward of being on the scorecard, but that was not the case in this one.

While I am not fully in favor of making him captain, this team could learn a lot from him. The example he showed in this game was to shoot the friggin’ puck.

Time after time after time the Blues pass up shots in favor of a pass to an area where the shot would actually be easier to defend. We saw Jaden Schwartz do it and it cost the Blues and we saw Ivan Barbashev do it in this game. Both probably cost the Blues goals or at least chances to get a rebound.

O’Reilly had enough of that and just ripped one home for a power play score that tied the game 3-3. That might have been short lived, but the Blues need to learn from that.

O’Reilly is a center and more than capable of getting plenty of assists. However, unlike the pass all the time centers we have had in the past, he wants to score if it is there.

He could have easily dumped it down low to Pat Maroon and just kept the cycle going. We have seen that plenty of times from this pitiful power play. Instead, he took his chance and it paid off. Maybe it wont every time, but fans would rather see that then the constant passing with no hope of anything more.

O’Reilly also does a lot of little things that go unnoticed. There is no need to make him seem superhuman, but I would take 10 of him over most of what the Blues currently have.

Overview

This should just be another loss. We have seen plenty of them in this up and down season. It feels worse though because of the entire package.

Just when you think the Blues have turned a corner and can, at least, lose games in a fashion that makes you shrug and say the better team won, they turn right back into the crapshack we saw take the ice earlier in the year.

On top of that, they had a chance to have a four point swing in the standings if they had won and Colorado and Minnesota lost. Instead, since Colorado lost and Minnesota came back to win, you fall further behind one and stay the same in regard to the other.

You simply cannot keep throwing these chances away and be able to expect more than another playoff miss at the end of the season.

We keep wanting to say this team should be better than this, but they are not. Clearly, at this point, they are not.

We have run out of things to blame. It is not the goaltending and never was, regardless of the lazy narrative of sports talk and fans that know nothing of the position.

dark. Next. Blues Only Consistency Is Inconsistency

It’s not just a pure lack of effort because this team is out there trying. They just make stupid plays and let their problems snowball at the worst times.

Hopefully this is a one-off, but the nature of the mistakes makes me worry the old Blues – the ones we did not want to return – are back.

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