St. Louis Blues Morning Links: Coal For Christmas
Good morning Blues fans! Merry Christmas Eve for those of you that celebrate the holiday. For those of you that do not, happy belated Festivus for the rest of us.
The St. Louis Blues have been in a festive mood lately, in more than one way. They’ve been doing their usual trips to hospitals and helping out various charities. Those are the fantastic ways the team celebrates the holiday.
Unfortunately, they have been a bit too charitable on the ice. In their last six losses, the Blues have conceded three or more goals. In that same span, they have let up a total of 26 goals.
That’s not a streak you want to be on. Another streak that has not benefited the Blues is their entry into the holiday break.
Three of the last four years the Blues have gone into the Christmas holiday with a loss. It could have been four in a row if the NHL had not scheduled the Blues to a back-to-back against Philly and Boston last year (Lost to the Flyers, beat Boston the next night).
Sadly, there really isn’t a great reason for the slide. The Blues have had different goaltenders and various players during that span.
They have scored bunches of goals, they’ve gone to shootouts and they have been shutout. So, there just isn’t one reason to point at for the Blues’ poor performances going into the holidays.
This is the one area that I would actually be willing to say it might boil down to coaching. You have to get a feel for your team and if they have too much of an eye out the door to head back to Canada or Russia or just home, you need to have a sense of that.
I’m not sure exactly what Ken Hitchcock would do differently, but it is disappointing. It has to be disappointing to the players and it definitely is to the fans.
Fortunately for the fans, these losses have all happened away from St. Louis. Perhaps that has something to do with it, but you have to win the games that are put in front of you.
The Blues have won three of the last four post-Christmas games though, so at least we have that to look forward to.
Here are your St. Louis Blues Morning Links to get your day started off right.
It has been something we have all suspected for awhile, but now the numbers back up our fears. The Blues are blowing a lot of lead, worst of all third period leads. There record when tied after two periods is just as bad. It is worrying because the Blues used to have slow starts and then flip the switch. Now the switch ends in the off position. (Post Dispatch)
Jeremy Rutherford seems to spend every waking moment in the presence of our favorite hockey team. I’m sure he has family time, but who knows when. He does find time to answer the questions of the masses, including the usual tools prattling on about Jake Allen being terrible *coughtakealongwalkoffashortpiercough* Anway, he answers all your pertinent Blues queries again this week. (STLToday)
Despite playing a great game and scoring a goal, Wade Megan’s time in the NHL was short. (Arch Authority)
As fans, we all have our differing views about what is going on and what could be done. With that in mind, our friends over at Game Time celebrated Festivus with the annual airing of grievances. (St. Louis Game Time)
The Blues failings on the road and before the holiday have put them in a precarious position as far as playoff seeding. The only thing helping them is Nashville’s continued poor play. Not aiding the Note is the Minnesota Wild’s current form as they just set a club record for consecutive wins. (NHL)
Social media is meant to be fun and a tool to connect us. Some people don’t think enough before they hit send though and sometimes that produces some very interesting moments. That happened recently with a former player as he went off on many topics including Don Cherry. (ESPN)
Have a great day Blues fans!
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