St. Louis Blues: Top 5 Toughest Games Of 2019-20
The St. Louis Blues might not have any easy games in 2019-20. There will be some games or stretches of games that will be pretty tough and these are the five on top.
The only drawback of winning a Stanley Cup, if there is one, is you are going to get everyone’s best shot in every game the following season. That is the test the St. Louis Blues will have to take in 2019-20.
The Blues know they are going to have to be at their best right from the first drop of the puck. Teams have improved their lineups and have their eyes set on dethroning St. Louis.
Making matters more difficult is the fact the Blues will be hosting the 2020 NHL All-Star Game. While the entire team will not be taking part in that, it will involve a lot of media attention and could provide an extra distraction during the year.
That will be the biggest key for the 2019-20 Blues. They cannot afford to have a start to the season similar to what happened in 2018-19.
Sure, they got away with it and won it all. That is not a recipe for success in the long term.
Getting off to a good start to the year will be key for the Blues. That won’t be easy as they will face the 2018 Stanley Cup champion and then one of the two teams that took them to seven games in the 2019 playoffs right away.
Nevetheless, the Blues have plenty of opportunity for success if they keep focused. Do that and have success in the games we discuss going forward and there will be every chance to have a repeat.
Opening Night
First thing’s first, as they say. The St. Louis Blues have a tough thing to deal with right off the bat.
Their very first game of the 2019-20 season pits the defending Stanley Cup champions against the champions of 2017-18. The Washington Capitals are going to be tough and were one of the best during last regular season.
The Capitals finished on top of the Metropolitan Division with 104 points and a record of 48-26-8. Many considered them a strong contender to repeat as champions, but they were shocked in seven games by the Carolina Hurricanes.
2019-20 will be a redemption year for the Capitals. They are going to want to prove, again, they are not just a regular season team and will not choke in the playoffs. One game might not mean everything, but they are going to be motivated to get off on the right foot, especially after a much longer offseason than they expected.
Another factor with this game will be the ceremony. The Blues are going to raise their Stanley Cup banner to the rafters of the Enterprise Center prior to the game.
That means the player’s schedules are thrown out of whack. The actual game will likely not start until 7:30 or after despite a normal scheduled time of 7 pm. That means players sitting on the bench, getting stiff, unfocused on the game at hand.
There is a running joke that pregame ceremonies mean a loss. There is no hard data on that, but any time I have been to a game where a banner was going up or someone was being honored, the Blues either lost or played very flat and snuck a win out.
Thus, this opening night is going to be very difficult. You’re playing a team very capable of winning a Stanley Cup this season and dealing with an extended, emotional ceremony prior to the game.
The building is going to be charged up and, though we hope the team is too, sometimes that can work against you.
Colorado To End The Season Again
The Blues get to play the Colorado Avalanche to end the year. Again. It’s practically tradition at this point.
St. Louis has played Colorado the last game in three of the last five years, if you include this coming year. In those other two seasons, they had to play Colorado in the last week of the season.
That’s fine. It makes sense, since they are a division rival.
The part that does not make sense is the regularity of playing Colorado, but the Blues have gone years where they play Chicago near the end and some years they seem to be done with the Blackhawks in February or earlier. If it is an attempt to build a rivalry, it might be working, but make that last week about rivalries overall, not just trying to make one.
Regardless, this is going to be a tough game, as it has been in past years. In 2017-18, the game decided who went to the playoffs. The game late in the 2018-19 season did not officially eliminate Colorado, but they had little to no chance to make it once the Blues beat them in a shootout.
The bottom line is these two teams have been battling for the playoffs or playoff positioning the last few seasons. The troubling part is the Blues already reached the peak and are trying to stay there while the Avs continue their ascent upward.
They might have the better top-end talent too. So when they are hot, they are hard to contain.
In a perfect world, the Blues would have their playoff position wrapped up and maybe even be on top of the division by the time this game rolls around. History tells us that will not be the case and this game is going to have a lot of significance for one team or the other and likely both.
Holiday Schedule
The holiday schedule gets very hectic for your regular person what with shopping and traveling and meeting family and friends for various gatherings. It is one of the happier times during the year, but it can be very stressful.
Normally, you do not associate that kind of stress with sports – at least, your average fan does not. We see them as living this perfect life where they only worry about the game and training and have all this extra time. That’s not really how it works during a normal time and players have just as much to worry about during the holidays. They have families too and just as many, if not more social gatherings to try and squeeze in.
The trouble for the Blues is going to be the travel and still trying to have family time. The Blues are not going to be at home much, if at all, during the holidays.
St. Louis will be at San Jose and Los Angeles before the Christmas break, with the game against the Kings coming on December 23. The players will basically have to get all their Christmas activities done during a three day period after that game, assuming they travel back to St. Louis immediately following the Kings game.
They may not even get a full three days because they have a game in Winnipeg on December 27. It would not be shocking for them to have to travel up north on December 26.
It does not get much better the following week. The Blues will be playing in Arizona December 31 and then Colorado on January 2. So, there will be no signing Auld Lang Syne with significant others, unless they travel with them.
Every team has to deal with rough road schedules throughout the year. This couple week period just seems even rougher since it encompasses both Christmas and New Years, giving the Blues about as little family time as possible during two of the holidays. Hopefully, they will be able to keep distractions aside.
First Night After the Bye
I’ll be perfectly honest here. I do not have any empirical data on this, but I know it was discussed on the NHL Network either last season or during the 2017-18 season.
Teams rarely do well in their first game after the bye week. There is good reason for this too.
The NHL instituted a policy where teams were not able to have much practice time during this week and team meetings, outside of players getting together on their own, was restricted. Basically, the league was trying to treat it as a mini-vacation.
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That is great, in theory. You give the players a break during the season to recharge and rest up. However, even top-tier players have to stay on point. A week of not practicing might be good for the mind and spirit, but it is not always the best for the body (other than rest).
Nobody is going to forget how to play in one week, but you get a little rusty by not even hitting the ice for several days. Players take advantage of the rest, but that can get you out of the rhythm too.
What will be interesting for the Blues is how they come out following their bye. They are going to be on the road, with Vancouver being their first destination and playing in Calgary the following night.
Vancouver will be somewhat of a tossup game. They keep improving, but like the Edmonton Oilers or the Avalanche of a few years ago, they have top-end talent but are not quite deep enough to be a true contender.
That does not mean they are not dangerous. Vancouver finished in the middle of the pack in their division last season and also went 2-0-1 against the Blues.
More often than not, those games were not overly close too. In fact, the Canucks outscored the Blues 13-5 in those three games.
Calgary is no slouch either. Despite another disappointing playoff performance, the Flames are on the cusp. They had the best record in the Western Conference and are not looking to take a step back.
Thus, coupling two difficult games with the fact the Blues will have that bye-week rust is going to be something difficult to overcome.
November
The Blues just are not getting any love when it comes to holiday time. Granted, November is not as much of a holiday month as December, but it is still considered part of the holiday season in the U.S.
This time, the Blues get even more of a double-whammy as far as scheduling. Not only do the Blues get the short end of the stick in terms of dates, but also how many games.
St. Louis has a whopping amount of four sets of back-to-back games. Three of those four sets are home and aways and not with the same team.
The Blues start off the month with a weekend set of home against Columbus and then traveling to Minnesota. Later in the month, they are on the road in Columbus and travel home to play Anaheim. Then, they end the month with a set against Dallas on the road and Pittsburgh at home.
The lone back-to-back that is not home and away is, of course, just away. The Blues will be playing Vancouver and Edmonton, neither of which are pushovers.
Even outside of the back-to-back factor, November is loaded with tough games. The Blues will face the Tampa Bay Lightning twice in that month.
They have their west coast Canadian trip. The Blues are also on the road for Thanksgiving.
Theoretically, the Blues could return home for Thanksgiving, but that means leaving immediately after an east coast game, spending that Thursday in St. Louis and then flying out to Dallas. I am not the Blues travel agent, but it seems as though it might just be better to celebrate the American Thanksgiving on the road with teammates and do something at home later on.
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These ups and downs are going to certainly test the Blues. Whether it is a killer schedule or spending time away from home during the holidays, the Blues’ metal is definitely going to be tested. So much for winning a championship benefitting you the following year.
Ah well. Nobody in St. Louis would trade that.