The thing the St. Louis Blues pride themselves on the last few seasons is something that is holding them back now. They must fix their defensive miscues.
The St. Louis Blues have prided themselves as being a solid defensive team. That has been true for years and held true through their Stanley Cup win.
The Blues have offensive talent, but they are not going to win based on their offense alone. The Blues are not a dominating side, but they play a total team scheme that supports one another and cleans up the mistakes.
The problem, lately, is that the Blues are not getting away with their mistakes. They are being made to pay for their mistakes and pay dearly.
The Blues have now lost three games in a row surrounding the New Year holiday. That, in and of itself, is no major issue. The problem is how they are losing games.
St. Louis has had three game losing streaks in the past. It was usually a mixture of what caused it though.
One game might not have enough offense or the team didn’t have the right energy level. Another might have some shaky defensive play. Once in a blue moon, you’ll have a bad goaltending performance. Put those in a blender, mix them up and there is usually something different going on game to game.
However, while there have been different energy levels and offensive production, you can squarely point to the defensive effort of the Blues over the last three games. It started on New Year’s Eve against Arizona and has continued against Colorado and Vegas after that.
That is not to say the entire fault is on the shoulders of the actual defenders. This is a team-wide problem that has reared its head with specific examples.
Taking what is freshest in our memory, let us look at the goals from the Vegas game. On the first goal, Vince Dunn is involved with his man in front. He gets twisted around trying to find where his opponent went, vacating the spot he was at, allowing Ryan Reaves to have the rebound.
Dunn was not alone. Alex Pietrangelo got caught puck watching and allowed Reaves to slip in behind him. When the save is made, the two players closest to the goal were in front of their opponent. It was Petro letting his man go by.
As mentioned, this is not just a defenseman problem. On the second goal, it was weak stick play by Zach Sanford that led to the goal.
When the play starts, Sanford has an opportunity to be strong and get the puck out. Instead, his stick gets knocked away and the Golden Knights keep it in the zone.
Then, instead of hustling after things, Sanford kind of glides out and just softly puts his stick across the midline of William Carrier. You don’t want a penalty there, but given the way the game went, maybe a penalty would be better than a half-hearted stick swat that accomplished nothing.
Then, it was a mental error by Dunn that led to the Golden Knights’ fourth goal.
You can’t fault Dunn for trying to make a play. He was trying to spring the attack with a wing-to-wing pass that could have broke up the left side.
Instead, it deflected off a shin pad and set up a chance for Vegas with the defenders on their heels and the rest of the team going the other direction.
Maybe you’d like to see a little more spacial awareness by the forward and make a move to the puck. That argument can be made.
However, Dunn also needs to make a better choice. He has to weigh the pros and cons of making a full rink-wide pass from his back leg.
The odds are not in his favor to connect on that, even if it doesn’t get picked off. With Vegas having tied things up, the Blues need to be calm and calculated. Instead, they went for some glory and got made to pay for it.
This is not a bash Dunn article, nor picking on Sanford. They were just the main examples in a complete collapse in all facets from the team’s most recent game.
The defense, as a whole, has not gotten the job done. In their three losses, they have given up 15 goals.
For those not interested in doing the math, that’s an average of five goals per game. That is not acceptable. It does not matter that they played two teams leading the conference in goals. If you pride yourself on defense, you have to find ways to slow those teams down.
The Blues could have used better goaltending in the Colorado game. However, even if you blame Jordan Binnington for two or three goals, which would be harsh, that means the rest of the team had a hand in letting up four or five.
These are the dog days of the season. You are halfway through the season, but things don’t feel like a home stretch until after the All-Star Game. It is hard to get up for every game and be engaged.
Still, the Blues have to get back to basics and start limiting shot totals. 101 shots over three games isn’t that good. 15 goals over that time is even worse.
This is a good defensive team, front to back. They need to start showing it again.