The St. Louis Blues team that hit the ice against the Colorado Avalanche in the team’s second game of the season should have been better. Though they lost some grit with the suspension of Sammy Blais, they should have had more offensive punch with Mike Hoffman making his debut.
That’s just not what happened. Not only was the offense nonexistent, but the overall Blues style was not to be seen at all in that contest.
The team’s new captain, Ryan O’Reilly, was not having it. His reaction in the media following the game was somewhat refreshing.
In the past, it seemed like you got stock answers from previous captains. That’s not even meant to put down David Backes or Alex Pietrangelo, but this just felt different.
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The main problem with Backes is you could feel his emotion, but nothing would ever change. Backes always seemed keenly aware of what the team’s problems were, but they never got fixed.
Pietrangelo often seemed annoyed. Every indication is that Petro was a good captain behind closed doors and he demanded a lot, but in front of the camera you normally got stock answers. It was the usual *sigh/eye roll* “yeah, we just weren’t very good tonight.”
St. Louis Blues captain not happy with team’s performance
O’Reilly was very upfront. He was blunt in his disappointment with the team’s performance, including his own, saying the Blues embarrassed themselves.
“That was very disappointing,” O’Reilly said to the media following the game, reported by ESPN. “We came into the game and you could just tell we didn’t have the detail. I think everyone right now, we’re embarrassed. That was not what we do. We stick with it. We compete to the end, and we didn’t.”
What was nice about this sentiment was that it was to the point, did not call anyone specifically out and also echoed the coach’s analysis of the game as well. Berube and O’Reilly seem to mesh well so far.
“We didn’t come out with enough urgency,” Berube said in his Zoom call. “We escaped the first period but it never got better.”
O’Reilly managed to give similar answers without just being an echo chamber. It probably stings him a little that this happened against his former team, but you still get the feeling he’d react this way no matter what.
What was refreshing about O’Reilly’s reaction is he made you feel that things would be dealt with. His physical mannerisms were not that dissimilar to Pietrangelo’s, but there was just a different feeling behind it.
You believe that O’Reilly will get guys to actually turn their game around quickly as opposed to simply demanding things be different in the locker room and not following up. I can easily see O’Reilly not only saying what went wrong but having a game plan of how to fix things as well.
It’s a small difference, but one that should give the fans greater confidence. It is just one game, but eight goals against cannot be tolerated, even if it is likely an aberration.
O’Reilly will get things fixed. That’s why he was the clear-cut choice to wear the C.