While the St. Louis Blues dropped their first two games of the preseason, it's not a reflection on head coach Jim Montgomery. Preseason means absolutely nothing, especially in the early stages, when you're seeing players destined for the lower leagues skating around in an NHL uniform.
Really, that's all it is. A bunch of guys, many of whom will never play full-time in the league, saying, "Hey, look, I got to wear a St. Louis Blues jersey once upon a time." Yeah, those are cool, feel-good stories that won't move the needle for the organization unless the Blues suffer a massive rash of injuries.
But as preseason wears on, that's when we'll at least get an idea of what this Blues team will look like. Gone will be over half the players who began camp, sans a few holdouts lucky to have made it far enough to warrant serious consideration to land a spot with the team.
Those guys will be more than worth watching, no doubt. But at that point, I'm actually paying attention to line combos, sequences, situational strategies, I can go on and on here, but the point is, you'll start seeing strategies that'll come in October, albeit with some tweaks.
Preseason won't mean nothing for the St. Louis Blues until it does
Games 3 and 4 might mean something, but Gams 5 and 6 are your "dress rehearsals." And wow, one's coming against a surprise team from last season, maybe even a bigger surprise than the Blues were in the Ottawa Senators, and another's against the lowly Chicago Blackhawks.
While it wouldn't crush my optimism in Jim Montgomery or the Blues climb if they dropped both contests since it'll be early enough in October to correct some mistakes, I will say that it'll shake my level of optimism.
Should the Blues take those two games, whether with ease or if they squeak out the W's, we should be riding high on a wave of expectations once the puck drops to begin the regular season later that month.
Win one, lose one? Hey, you can have a good night and a bad night. Ideally, I'd rather see a narrow loss to the Sens and a thrashing of the Hawks if that were the case. Play at least near par with teams projected to be on the same level that you're on, and beat those you're supposed to.
Those will be an interesting pair of contests to see what the Blues do, who's still in consideration for a spot, and what some strategy looks like from the bench boss.