The St. Louis Blues continue to be a frustrating team when away from the Gateway City. Smashville did their city proud as they embarrassed the Note in Music City to end a woeful road trip.
The St. Louis Blues are disgustingly poor on the road right now. Just when you think they have things figured out, they find new and inventive ways to let you down if they don’t have a home crowd to spur them on.
Their game against Nashville to end their four game road trip in early/mid-December was a microcosm of everything the team could possibly do wrong. What made things even worse was the Blues gave us all a false sense of confidence before they ripped our hearts out in a scene reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
The Blues looked like they were going to get a split on this road trip. Four points out of eight, given St. Louis’ problems playing away from home would have been a solid foundation to build something off of.
Unfortunately, the Blues refused to finish anything off. They didn’t put their foot on their throat, they could not close down defensively and they just sat there and watched the Predators swarm all over them like a team on the brink.
In the end, for that game, perhaps we should have seen it coming. In the opening 60 seconds it seemed as though neither team was interested in playing defense.
Both teams were flying up and down the ice. If not for the goaltenders on both sides, the game could easily have seen two or three goals in the first five minutes.
The Blues eventually took advantage of their pressure against Nashville. They seemed poised to cruise to an easy win, perhaps best shown by my rather cocky tweets with SmashvilleProud.
@SmashvilleProud be happy to…after this game is over :p
— Bleedin’ Blue (@BleedinBlueFS) December 14, 2016
I mean, c’mon. They were up 3-0 for crying out loud. They could have been up by more, but on the flip side were a bit fortunate that Jake Allen saved their butts early in the game.
On a side note, can we stop piling on Allen? This standard people choose to hold Blues goaltenders to is absolutely ridiculous and could be achieved by nobody.
Back to the point, as with the entire road trip, the Blues just played with their heads up their rears when things got tough. Jekyll and Hyde no longer describes this team well enough.
There is no way in logical sense that the team can get results when playing poorly at home and then just bomb whether they play well or not on the road. That’s exactly what is happening though.
The Blues opened up the road trip with a poor performance against a middling New York Islander team. They were tied going into the third, but bad third periods would be a theme all trip long.
The team gave us more false hope with a fantastic win over New Jersey. They did everything right in that game with solid defending, taking advantage of their scoring opportunities and getting good goaltending.
That all evaporated in Minnesota. Two second period goals against the Wild did the team in and then another third period where the team failed to even try was disheartening.
That’s why the game in Nashville seemed so positive. There were the usual things the Blues do or fail to do, but they still managed to jump all over the Preds.
Then they allowed six straight goals. Let that sink in. Six. Straight. Goals.
Allen did the team no favors with a softy mixed in there, but that is still four or five goals against even if you take those out of the equation. The defense was nonexistent. There was absolutely no fight in this team at all.
That’s what makes your stomach churn. Lose if you must, but at least look like you give a damn.
The Blues look like the reality of what people used to accuse the Greatest Show on Turf of. Hit them in the mouth and they will shrink.
That’s exactly what has happened to the Blues in two of the three losses on the trip. In Minnesota and Nashville, when their opponent put on the pressure, the Blues had no answer.
Their feet were in quicksand. They were left in a pool of their own drool as they just sat there, slack-jawed, watching the other team put their heart into the game and the Blues could not even muster a whimper in response.
There are always ups and downs in any season. Road trips go well or they don’t. The same goes for home stands.
The juxtaposition at the moment is just insane right now though. There is absolutely no crossover in terms of effort or results.
We keep saying the Blues better figure it out. I honestly don’t know if they can or will. They keep making things way too complicated.
The positive side of me wants to side with the announcers and recognize they were in all four games at late stages of the contests. The negative side says they failed to do anything in those late stages and that might be more telling.
At this point, the positive thing is the Blues are returning home. They’re also facing New Jersey, who they just waxed 4-1. Hopefully some more home cooking will flip the script again.
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