The Blue's round up
St Louis Time Picayune (AP) - "This isn't the team that I thought we would have" stated GM Crunch in his weekly presser. "Maybe I made a mistake in trading Stone, but at the end of the day, that's on me, the team still needs to play".
From shaky goaltending to a poor Power Play, the Blue have badly stumbled out of the gate with a 5-8-1 record that have left them out of a playoff spot and in 11th in the West three points out of 8th.
"We're getting scoring. But our goaltending hasn't been great. Demko f'd the football last night in our latest debacle, and Mzarek isn't winning games".
In terms of the new aquisition Blake Wheeler "He hasn't been anything to write home about. He's on a line with studs and he's not all that productive. Our bottom 6 really isn't doing much later. The defense that I built up to limit chances has fallen off of the rails."
His warning was ominous "I can only mentor Bronco for so long, and by mentor I mean punch in the face".
When asked with changes are coming, Crunch announced that he had sent 7th defenseman Greg Pataryn to the Caps for Brett Kulak. "I like Greg, he looked good in his game action, but I don't want to eat that much cap space on a 7th defenseman. Brett's young and should be a better fit there."
"In terms of other changes, sure, I'm open to it, but I'm not making changes to make changes. If I move one of my top players, it has to make sense to me and the team moving forward."
John Tavares was equally disturbed "We have to work way harder then we do, talent doesn't win when talent doesn't work hard, period. We all have to take a look in the mirror and decide what kind of hockey team we want to be."
Ice Chips - Crunch all but confirmed that there was interest in Tavares, but he hasn't seen a deal that he's really liked yet. He'd still like to look at maybe moving Erik Karlsson who has been decent but more's expected. It might only be so long before Crunch loses patience with his goaltending.