The St. Louis Blues’ 6-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights a couple of games ago seemed like a coming-out party. It looked as if the Blues had finally arrived and were ready to chew up the rest of the NHL.
That feeling has completely changed following back-to-back shutouts. A 4-0 blanking at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes and a frustrating 2-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens have fans scratching their heads.
And that situation has led to the Blues needing to answer questions about their season.
Let’s start with the most evident one: Are the Blues real contenders this season?
Judging by the scores, the Blues don’t look like they’re ready to contend this season. While there have been some significant bright spots, the bottom line is that the team, as a whole, hasn’t been good enough.
That question leads to a second one: When is the scoring going to pick up?
Now, that’s a fair question considering the numbers. The Blues are currently 20th in the league, averaging 2.92 goals per game. That’s not too bad, but it’s not going to be good enough to make a dent in the Central Division. If you look just at the last two games, the Blues’ goals per game are 0. And that’s what makes the team’s overall scoring a bit of a mirage.
All right, so what about the defensive side of the puck?
The Blues are 15th in the league with a 3.08 goals-against average. So, just by contrasting the two numbers, we can see that the Blues are bleeding goals. And by mathematical reasoning alone, we can infer that the organization is on a downward spiral.
That assessment leads to another crucial question: What can the Blues do to turn things around?
Can the Blues do anything to get back on track?
The short answer to the question about solving things is: Score more goals.
That’s overly simplistic and infantile to a certain degree. But the bottom line is that the Blues need to get more from their top players, namely Robert Thomas.
The Blues captain has just one goal in 12 games. That’s a pace for seven goals on the season, with his six points in that stretch putting him on track for about 42 total points for the season.
That’s not what the Blues need right now.
And yes, Mason McTavish and Dylan Holloway have carried the offensive burden. But where things really need to improve is in the bottom six.
Dalibor Dvorsky has three points in 12 games. Other fill-ins like Otto Stenberg, Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, Zach Dean, and Dylan Peterson have not gotten on the scoresheet. The only bottom-six forward truly chipping in at this point is Pius Suter, a guy who’s been grinding in the rumor mill for a while now.
Ultimately, Jim Montgomery’s line movements spurred something on Tuesday night. Alexey Toropchenko was a welcome one. Moving up Jonatan Berggren to the second line was a good idea, even with Kaskimaki playing about eight minutes on the night.
All told, the Blues played well against Montreal, peppering Jacob Fowler with 46 shots. It was just such a tough break to be on the wrong end of a historically good shutout performance.
And that’s probably the silver lining here. The Blues are on track to turn things around. It’s just a matter of the Blues building on the positives from Tuesday night, despite the frustrating loss.
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