3 Reasons The St. Louis Blues Repeat As Stanley Cup Champions

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2. Their Style Plays Anywhere/Anytime

One of the biggest fears with all teams when the NHL resumes is rust. Nobody has even touched the ice, unless they have their own rink somehow, for months.

That affects the legs. You can workout all you want, but there is still something vastly different about skating on ice. It involves different muscles and ankle stabilization.

Another thing that gets affected is timing. Nobody has been allowed to practice, which means no passing, no touch, no timing with your teammates.

While anyone would be right to fear teams like Tampa Bay, Colorado or Washington under normal circumstances, those are the teams that a long layoff will affect. Those are the teams that need the timing.

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They rely heavily on their offense to provide wins. Go cold at the wrong time, like Tampa did last season against Columbus, and it’s game over.

While there will be short training camps and round-robin or play-in games, anyone can get hot or anyone can go cold when playing real games for the first time in months. However, the Blues are not those teams.

Their style plays any time or anywhere. The Blues have the talent to score goals, but they don’t rely on that alone.

As proven by the way they won the Cup in 2019, the Blues win with physicality. The have the depth and the will to punish their opponents in a way other teams can’t do. San Jose had lots of talent, but they showed they could not beat the Blues at their own game.

If the Blues can’t score, they can still defend and they’re going to hit people. It doesn’t take timing to have the will to battle in the corners and play the body the way the Blues do.

That’s going to give them a definite edge.

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