Three Reasons To Worry About 2023-24 St. Louis Blues Already

Lack of scoring

Spinning off the injury issue, even with the team fully healthy, they have not scored nearly enough. Yes, the overall team game is fine and they’re keeping a tighter defensive position and keeping opponents away.

However, in two games, the Blues only have two goals in regulation. In a league where winners typically score four or more goals, one goal per game is not even close to cutting it.

Compounding matters, the Blues continue to be a quality over quantity in the shot category. That’s fine if guys are connecting on things more regularly, but eventually you just need to get pucks on net.

We’ve seen far too many games where the Blues have three or four shots in one period. Unless you score two goals on those four shots, that’s just not enough.

I’m not saying just chuck stuff at the goal from 40 feet away simply to pad your shot totals, but three and four shots won’t cut it. You have to challenge goaltenders and make them work sometimes.

The Blues are barely making their opponent’s goalie sweat in some periods. Given the talent the team lost last year, we knew they weren’t going to be a top-five team in goals, but the pace they’re setting early in 2023-24 is not too encouraging.

The team did need to refocus on defense and seems to have done so, since they’ve also only allowed two goals in regulation. You just hope the focus on defense has not come at the expense of offense because you do have to score to win.