St. Louis Blues Need To Look For Defense, Not Forwards

The St. Louis Blues are possibly buyers at the upcoming NHL trade deadline. Despite reports that the team is looking for scoring, they should be looking back, not forward.

With the St. Louis Blues in a slight free fall since the All-Star break and not playing very well in 2020 overall, the assumption is they will likely be buyers at the trade deadline. However, most people are looking in the wrong place to add.

Blues fans all over are crying for more scoring. It is understandable.

Five teams are now better scoring teams overall than the Blues. St. Louis has struggled to score, with the majority of their goals coming in large bunches, such as the 6-3 win over Carolina, a 5-4 win over Calgary and a 6-5 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.

However, adding a scorer isn’t going to fix what really ails this team. The Blues need help on defense.

Until a 2-1 loss to Nashville on February 16, the Blues had allowed three or more goals in 11 straight games. In eight of those games, St. Louis gave up four goals or more.

You cannot blame this solely on the goaltending either. Both Jake Allen and Jordan Binnington were often peppered with shots, often making big saves just to keep more goals out than actually went in.

In one contest alone, the Blues allowed over 50 shots and 80-plus chances against. That is not Blues hockey.

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Chris Kreider and his 23 goals is not going to keep pucks out of the net. Even if he stayed consistent, there are no guarantees that the current group of Blues scoring, mainly Zach Sanford, will continue. The Blues offense is based on team play, so it is folly to think a 20-plus goal scorer is suddenly going to lead this team where it needs to be.

The Blues won the Stanley Cup with defense and goaltending. Both Allen and Binnington could have been better lately, but the defense has not been where it needs to be all season long.  Even when the team was winning, it was rarely the defense that carried them.  It was usually a goalie or timely scoring.

The Blues have allowed more goals than the Stars, Avalanche and Coyotes. No offense to those teams, but the Blues have better goalies than all except maybe Dallas. Even then, there is a debate to be had.

So, the difference boils down to defending. Of course, there will be finger pointing at the one player that is different, Justin Faulk.

An entire article could be dedicated to how that is short-sighted and unfair and also falling under Blues fans inability to not have a scapegoat. There always has to be one player that bears the brunt.

Oddly, in recent years, it has been Jay Bouwmeester and Alex Pietrangelo. Funny how winning suddenly changed those perceptions.

Regardless, if you do want to find fault with Faulk it is because he is not a defense first defender. He is likely a better defender than we are seeing, but offense is still his main claim to fame.

The Blues need a defense-first defender.

Best case scenario would be for Bouwmeester to feel healthy enough to play again this season. However, even if his career is not done, it seems very unlikely he would be able to recover quickly enough and build his stamina again for this year. Thus, the Blues need to look into defense.

There is a thought that Lou Korac put forth that the Blues might have interest in Brenden Dillon.

That would not be a sexy trade, but it might be worth exploring.

Dillon is definitely not an offense-first player. He currently has one goal and 14 points.

However, he’s a decent defender. Dillon is a plus-1 on a bad defensive team – San Jose has allowed the most goals in the Western Conference.

In 2018-19, when the Sharks made it to the conference final, Dillon was a plus-19. He’s also a decent eater of minutes, if necessary, skating for a little over 19 minutes for the Sharks this season.

He would not be the only name of interest. According to TSN, names like Alec Martinez and Sami Vatanen are likely to be available too.

The main issue with any of these players is salary available. If the Blues expect Vladimir Tarasenko to return before the playoffs, they will have to include an NHL player in a trade to clear cap room.

If Tarasenko might not be back until the playoffs, the deal would only need to include picks, if that satisfied the seller. Of course, the status of Bouwmeester will affect the cap situation as well.

Martinez is the only one with term left on his deal. Almost all the others will be free agents in the summer and therefore rentals, which is dangerous given that you’d be giving up players for someone not likely to be here next season.

One name that pops up that would be someone interesting is Michael Del Zotto. He’s not exactly a shutdown defender, but he knows the Blues system having been with the team last year and would fit in with the locker room too. He also would not likely cost much since his salary is already near minimum and the Ducks are clearly out of playoff contention.

Regardless of who, the what is defense and that is what the Blues need. Scoring is available if top line guys play to their capabilities, which they are currently not. The defense can only get so much better.

Faulk could clean up some mistakes, but there has been a lot of puck watching by the entire unit. Vince Dunn continues to be a mistake machine in his own zone, but you don’t hear his name as much.

Carl Gunnarsson is not the player we saw in the playoffs. Robert Bortuzzo does what he can, but he’s not meant to be an every day defender with this team. His role is better suited to come in now and again, punish the other team and that’s it.

The Blues need another shut-down defender, if they do anything at all at the deadline. Personally, I might be one of the very few that would be OK if they did nothing, but I’d rather get better defensively than add a goal here or there and continue playing like Swiss cheese at the back.