St. Louis Blues Scoring Leaders Need To Step It Up

The St. Louis Blues are a team built on variety. They are not made to be led by one scorer or a single top line, but they do need their top players to get back into the swing of things.

The St. Louis Blues of last year and this year have prided themselves on being more about the whole than the sum of their parts. Their leading scorers get their numbers, but the team did not need to rely on those few individuals.

That needs to change for a bit. The top scorers, meaning forwards in this case, have to reestablish themselves as guys the team can count on in big moments.

Entering the February 15 game against the Nashville Predators, the Blues have not had a top scoring forward score in the last three games. In those same three games, Makenzie MacEachern is the only forward to score a goal not named Zach Sanford.

Sanford has been a one-man wrecking crew. He had four goals in a losing effort against the Vegas Golden Knights. He had two goals against the Carolina Hurricanes on February 4. Not coincidentally, that was the last game in which another forward scored a goal – Ivan Barbashev‘s goal against Anaheim does not technically count until the game is officially played.

Right now, the Blues have been relying on the defense to score goals. Over the last four games, Colton Parayko has four goals and Carl Gunnarsson has one.

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Take away Sanford and Parayko, and the Blues only have five goals over the last four games. Only two of those came from a player you would consider a top scorer and those came in a 6-3 beat down of the Hurricanes with the score already 3-1 at that point.

Ryan O’Reilly‘s last goal came on February 1 in a loss to Winnipeg. Before that, his last goal came on January 15.

David Perron, who has had a fantastic season, has not scored at all in February. His last goal came January 31. After averaging a goal every other game, Perron has not scored in five games and only has two assists over that span.

Schenn has been even more quiet. Yes, he had the two goals against Carolina and one goal the game prior to that against Winnipeg. However, he has not scored in his last three and did not have a goal in 14 straight games prior to the Winnipeg game.

Jaden Schwartz has had a great turnaround season from the disappointment that was his regular season in 2018-19. Still, his last goal was January 28 against Calgary.

Prior to that, it was January 13. That’s nine of his last 11 games without a goal.

Robert Thomas has one goal in 12 games. You don’t necessarily depend on him for goals, but he is your fifth leading scorer that is a forward, so he is also a part of the problem.

None of this is to suggest trading for a forward. Most of the rumored trades for a scorer would be a mistake.

What it is saying is the Blues scorers need to find their game again. This hot streak for Sanford is wonderful, but he’s not a consistent player yet, if he ever will be. You cannot depend on him to be getting two or three goals per game. He’s done it in two of his last four, but he’d never scored two goals in a game prior to that.

The Blues need better defending to keep pucks out of the net. That is paramount and probably their number one problem at this stage of the season.

Still, you need O’Reilly, Perron, Schenn and Schwartz to start scoring again and with regularity. Those are the players you need to be leaning on for offense and right now they are putting up a lot of goose eggs.

Vladimir Tarasenko might return in March. He might return in April or maybe not at all. Even if he does come back, it is unfair to expect him to regain his scoring touch out of nowhere.

The Blues have to have their best scorers currently playing be their best players on offense. Without that, especially coupled with the defensive issues, they will continue to struggle.