Things have gone wrong for the St. Louis Blues.
There is no getting around their atrocious start to the season. Just about everything that could have gone wrong has, as the team keeps finding ways to lose.
The season has already been a huge disappointment for the club, which had such lofty expectations coming into the year, so is there any hope of salvaging their season and pulling away from the mire?
I think so.
Despite everything, the Blues are not too far out of it
Believe it or not, the Blues are only three wins away from a playoff spot. That's one good week of hockey away from competing for the wild card once again.
Watching the Blues season, it would be understandably hard to believe they have a good week of hockey in them as they continue to drop games, but the pace they've created is actually not too terrible.
In their losing ways, they have found a means to take several games to overtime. While they can't seem to escape any of these games with two points, the job to extend the game to OT and earn that extra point cannot be overstated. While they're finding ways to lose, at least they're doing it in overtime a lot of the time.
These points end up as crucial difference makers as the season progresses; just last season, Calgary was keeping pace with the Blues for the last playoff spot based on their massive amount of overtime losses.
This could make a massive difference as the season progresses if the Blues can pull it together. I know it is hard to believe things will get any better given how the team has looked so far, but we are already beginning to see signs of the turnaround coming.
Jordan Binnington was the worst goaltender by many metrics to start the season, and he's followed it up with a couple of solid performances. He isn't blowing the barn doors off, but he's doing enough to give his team a chance to win, which was not the case for the first month of games. If the goaltending can turn it around to being even just average, the Blues will have a lot better of a shot at starting to convert some of these late games to wins.
A three-win gap is not an insurmountable hill to climb for any team, meaning the Blues are not out of it yet. The Western Conference is wide open, and there is always room for the Blues to take over and prove they are better than they've shown so far.
I am not saying it's time to plan the parade or expect that a huge run is coming, but if they can pull off even a measly three-game win streak, that would do wonders for the Blues standings situation. They have the means and the opportunity, but time is running out quickly. The only thing that remains to be seen is if the Blues can dig deep and pull themselves out of the swamp before they sink too deep.