St. Louis Blues Provide Future Opponents With Blueprint To Defeat Them

The St. Louis Blues had hit a good stretch before running into their own personal kryptonite, Semyon Varlamov, and losing in a shootout. Brian Elliott has been stellar of late as well. Elliott is 5-1-1 since starter Jake Allen went down with an injury that will keep him out until after the All-Star break. Despite all that positivity, the Blues seem to lay out a blueprint for other teams to beat them in the future more than other teams.

Whether the Blues win or not, they seem to succumb to the same things and when the time comes in the playoffs, their opponents know exactly what to take advantage of. A big issue with the club is their lack of fluidity at times. When St. Louis is on, they are cycling the puck around, moving it quickly and knifing through central areas of the ice. As the Colorado Avalanche showed, as well as several other teams, if you keep the Blues pinned to the walls they have no answer.

It’s as though the Blues fall into the trap too. Instead of putting more bodies in the middle, they actually end up with more people on the perimeter with no option to even go central. When the Blues aren’t completely on their game, you will often find too many people scrumming for the puck on the walls as well. Three St. Louis players will be in a group with only two opponents and it seems they often don’t come out with possession. This usually allows easy clearances or empty-net goals against.

Another huge issue the Blues have is their power play. Stats will point out that the Blues have been fifth in the league or higher on the man-advantage at various points in the year. That’s fools gold. Their power play is often embarrassing and unable to even get the puck in the zone. Much of this is due to the team’s inability to enter the zone cleanly. The Blues buckle under heavy pressure and thus teams that have time to scout them know exactly what to do.

Even when St. Louis does gain the zone, teams know to advance on every puck holder and contest every pass. Those same opponents will lay back and play more textbook defense against other squads. However, against the Blues it seems every power play is hotly contested and never a moment to even think because the scouting reports show that if you pressure the team they fail to break it.

St. Louis is always a team that is hard to figure out. They have skill and a tenacity that is very difficult to beat when the team is on point. They have one of the top goaltending combinations in the entire NHL. Yet, they also make it so clear how to beat them that even the average person can tell.

Granted, a team still has to implement that gameplan and hope St. Louis isn’t having one of their good nights, but these are also things that get exaggerated in the playoffs. Those very problems go from being minor to game-enders in the postseason. Failure to impose their will in the tough areas of the ice and a lackluster to nonexistent power play has doomed this team in the past and could very well do so again.

St. Louis knows what their issues are. You hear it in almost every postgame media session following a loss. It’s high time they figure out how to change the ways teams know to defeat them or it will be the same early offseason.