The St. Louis Blues have been one of the most confounding teams on the power play over the last few years. Their numbers are good this season, but as usual, it could be so much better.
On the ninth day of Bluesmas, the blue note gave to me, nine power play dances. Ok, there’s only one true power play dance but the dance has gotten a decent amount of work as the St. Louis Blues have the ninth ranked power play in the league as of writing this.
The Blues have an extremely odd power play. It can look capable of scoring at will and the next moment it can look incapable of even entering the zone.
Despite that lack of consistency, the Blues have been surprisingly consistent. The last time they finished outside of the top 10 in the league’s rankings was 2012-13.
2013-14 was the last time they had a power play percentage below 20%. Even then, the team finished seventh in the league in the power play rankings.
This year, clearly based on it being the ninth day of Bluesmas, the team is ranked ninth. The odd thing is they are lower so far this year in the rankings but have the exact same percentage (21.5%) as last season when they finished sixth.
What makes these numbers so odd is the strange dichotomy within the team’s power play unit. The Blues are scoring at a reasonable percentage, but the style with which they work on the man-advantage is just maddening.
It is not as though they go through peaks and slumps. You honestly never know what you are going to get shift to shift, much less power play to power play or even game to game.
The Blues biggest problem seems to be gaining access to the offensive zone. Once they establish themselves, they are quite difficult to stop, thus the top 10 ranking.
For whatever reason though, they struggle to even get into the zone sometimes. They look like a collegiate team going up against NHLers in those moments. It is nothing but a constant dump in and watch it get cleared immediately cycle.
On top of that, the maddening thing about the Blues is their habit of passing too much. If you thought they did that at five-on-five, then don’t even bother watching the power play unit.
We all had high hopes for Colton Parayko emulating Al MacInnis with his bombs from the point. If he could ever find some sticks that would not shatter, maybe that would happen, but for now the shots from the point remain a lot fewer than we would like.
Additionally, the Blues still try to set up the back door one timer too often. Sometimes you just need to get the puck on target and bang away at those rebounds.
More often than not, those are the types of goals the Blues have gotten when up by a man. Either that or they get those seeing eye shots or deflections. There really has not been a ton of highlight reel goals coming on the power play.
This is all stuff that has plagued the team for awhile, so you can’t pin an blame on one person or group of players. The only other slightly disappointing thing about the team’s unit is who leads it.
Personally, I like Kevin Shattenkirk. That said, even though he is an offensive d-man, I’d rather have one of our forwards on top of the powerplay list.
However, he currently leads the team with five power play goals. Vladimir Tarasenko is one behind him with four. At least the two leaders combined have nine, which fits in with our overall theme and I like coincidences like that thematically.
On the positive side, the scoring has been spread out a bit. Three players have three goals and two have two. It would be nice if those totals were higher, but that’s how power plays go.
What is so odd about the power play rankings is how little it really means though. Three of the top 10 and two of the top 5 are currently out of the playoffs if they started today.
We think of Alex Ovechkin and Washington as dynamos, but they are 13th. The vaunted Chicago Blackhawks are 15th in the league.
So, in the end, perhaps the Blues’ ranking is not a gigantic deal. It’s just frustrating because it could be higher.
The Blues have the talent to do so much better. Their inability to even gain access to the zone at times prevents that as does the overpassing.
For now, ninth is fine as long as they keep chipping in in key situations.
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