The Blues’ Troubles Are Getting Attention

It’s a bad sign when the owner calls you out.
It’s an even more awkward thing when the team puts the owner calling you out on their website’s team multimedia page. But that’s what the Blues did, putting this video up for the world to see.

Honest to God, I don’t disagree with him at all. We DO have the pieces of the puzzle (not to ape from that awful ad campaign), but we’re trying to put them together in the wrong order. Occasionally we get a section completed (see: Tuesday night against the Canucks) and it’s outstanding – you can see the picture coming together nicely.

Some nights you see something like what happened Thursday – you *think* you have everything being put together right… goaltending goes there… defense fits… but why won’t this offense piece fit? WHY? Chris Mason was outstanding, and we still lost 2-1 to the Preds. I knew this game wasn’t going to be high scoring, but come on. There have been too many one goal losses to ignore. When you look at our last five games, there have been one-goal losses in OT or a shootout to Calgary, Philly, and Atlanta. You have Tuesday’s blow-out, and then you have Thursday’s one goal loss to Nashville coming in the last three minutes of the game. You can tell where the problems aren’t.

The problems have been up front. The guys that we would assume to make up our top six aren’t all producing. Backes is currently centering the checking line. Boyes has scored in back-to-back games, yes, but that’s after him not scoring in a significant amount of time. He has over 70 goals over the past two seasons combined. He has three this year.

Kariya has been shooting more often, yes, but he can’t find the back of the net. His issue isn’t like Boyes’ (not being able to shoot anywhere near the goal), but for whatever reason, every shot he takes is blocked. Rebounds are rarely given up… Kariya started on the 4th line Thursday. He is getting paid $6 million dollars a season to start on the 4th line. Chew on that for a second or two.

Tkachuk hasn’t been producing, not scoring a point since mid-October. This is pretty unusual for Walter, considering that he usually is up near the top of Blues scorers every season, due to his ability to be in the right place at the right time for a good greasy goal. The issue here might be the change-ups in systems that have been going on recently. Dump and chase doesn’t lend itself to scoring the rebound goal. Dump and chase doesn’t lend itself to anything anyway, let alone giving Tkachuk the chance to do his thing.

Honestly, other than Perron and the rest of the first line, the forward line that has been doing its job the best was our new second line of Eller-Berglund-Oshie. Guess who is on his way back across the river to Peoria right now? Yep. Ah, high energy line, we hardly knew ye.

Everything is in the puzzle box. We’re staring at the picture of the Blizmaco on the front, trying to put it together. What the problem is happens to be beyond the team, beyond the coaches, and beyond management. Like hell if a blogger like me will be able to figure it out. Of course, that’s not going to keep me from offering up my half baked opinions, but that’s what I get paid the big bucks for.*

*hint hint

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