St. Louis Blues Must Return To Jake Allen Once He Is Healthy

The St. Louis Blues seem to always find themselves in the same predicament. They have two quality goaltenders, they run into an injury situation and then there are questions of who should start when everyone is healthy. Whether it was Chris Mason and Manny Legace, Mason and Ty Conklin, Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliott or now Elliott and Jake Allen, that situation seems to always rear its head. It has again this season.

Allen was playing very well at the start of the 2015-16 season. He was playing so well that Elliott did not feature for long stretches in November. However, due to an injury that occurred on Jan. 8, Elliott has had to shoulder the load. He has done an admirable job, going 5-2-2 since taking over full-time. In that time, win or lose, Elliott has had a save percentage under .910 only once and that was mostly because he was pulled from the game purely in an effort to send a message that the team was not playing well enough in front of him.

All of that said, Allen has to take over once he is healthy. Elliott has played fantastically. In a relatively small sample size, he has proven people wrong who said he never thrived when he had nobody to push him from behind (e.g. Halak or Allen). It seems a bit cruel to not give him an opportunity to keep it rolling, but that’s how it needs to be. This needs to be Allen’s team.

Now before the Elliott fans, of which there are many, get all up in arms — this won’t be just a snap of the fingers change. Allen will need time to get back up to speed, and the game splits between Allen and Elliott will have to be closer to what many expected during the beginning of the season. It isn’t as if there is a huge drop-off either way you go. Statistically, going into the All-Star break, their save percentages and goals-against averages are so close, you might as well say they’re the same. However, Allen needs to be the goaltender this team rides into the postseason with.

Fair or not, anecdotal or not, the team just plays better with Allen in the nets. Until this injury run where Elliott racked up those five wins, he was 5-4-3. Not all of that rests on his shoulders because the Blues gave him very little support, but that plays into it as well. Whether there is any real reason or it is purely coincidental, the Blues just seem to play better offensively with Allen in goal.

Elliott should be commended and declared a huge reason why the Blues achieve any success by the end of the season. However, Allen was all but officially declared “the man” before his injury and few, if any, teams have won a Stanley Cup with a true tandem in the playoffs.

For a team that has struggled to score goals at the pace it did in years past and has relied on its goaltending way too much, any mental advantage is one that has to be utilized. For whatever reason, Allen is that mental advantage and must be the goaltender going forward once he returns.