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Norm!
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St Louis Blues at the (Heart) Break
St Louis Times Picayuuune (AP) Submitted by Patches O'Toole.
At the start of this season, this sports reporter was excited about the prospects of a St Louis Blues team that would compete for the top of the Western Conference and go on a long playoff run. Instead, its been a season of disappointment with very few bright spots as the Blues have struggled to a 17-18-3 record and are sitting firmly outside of the playoffs, and the prospects of getting in are growing darker by the day. Now I'm not going out of my way to criticize Blue's GM, mainly because his reputation as a violent and ill tempered possible serial killer frightens me, but his record as a GM has to be looked at based on the players that have joined the team since the start of the season.
first and foremost if you look at this team, there's some funny statistical anomaly that are happening. For a team that's below .500 and in third last place, the underlying stats show that maybe their record is a bit deceiving.
The Blue's are average in terms of offense sitting in 13th place with a 2.92 gpg stat. However they're stingy on defense with a 2.82 gapg average for a 12th place Goals For/Goals against stat.
On special teams the Blue's have the fourth best power play in the league, and while their penalty kill is only 18th, in the last 20 games the pk has been stellar, and their PP+PK stat is good for 8th in the league.
The Blues are in 9th place in shots for, while in 13th place in shots against, good for 8th in the league in the shots for/shots against Stats at a 107.06 percentage.
In terms of hits and faceoff the Blue's could be considered to be elite in the league with sitting in 5th in hits and 7th in faceoff percentage.
Yet for all of these decent stats, this team just finds ways to lose games, and has been wildly inconsistent going on a 8-1-1 sprint at one point and then dropping three games in a row.
With the Blues sitting at 37 points and 7 points out of a playoff spot with teams ahead of them with games in hand, its becoming unlikely that unless the Blues find some consistency and start stacking up wins that they will make the playoffs. The biggest decision is whether the Blue's become sellers closer to the Trade deadline, or sit on this roster and re-evaluate over the off season.
I think it would be prudent to look at the effect that CaptainCrunch has had on this team since the start of the season. I think we can agree that he was extremely aggressive in the off season, and though he has gained some nice prospects and draft picks for the future, its important to look at the add-ons to the teams roster during he season.
The excellent
Marc-Andre-Fleury - 18gp 10-7-1 2.09 gaa .929 svpct, 3 SO - Fleury struggled badly with Pittsburgh but has been brilliant with the Blues. Crunch took a lot of heat for overpaying, but I think that this was a good move to stabilize the teams goaltending.
Sam Reinhart - Couldn't get any traction with with the Wild and Sharks, but has become a very good producer in St Louis putting up 9 goals and 6 assists for 15 points in 20 games and stabilizing the teams second line.
The Decent
Anthony Duclair was ok with the Sharks, but has been good with the Blues scoring 6 goals and 8 assists in 24 games mostly from the second line.
Phillip Danault - has been a first and second line contributor with 7 goals and 12 points in 20 games, but has yet to find overall consistency
Torey Krug - Was picked up to help spark the Blue's offense from the blueline. He hasn't been good or bad, he's kind of just there with 7 assists in 16 games.
The not so good
Mark Giordano - Bought in to be a number one blueliner, he's been there but hasn't been terrific. He's produced 8 points with 2 goals in 21 games while he's a -8. He might lose his spot on the top pairing to Curtis Mayfield.
Jordan Staal - Not good not outright awful with 5 goals and 6 points in 17 games moving between the third and fourth line.
Chandler Stephenson - Went through a injury, but in 17 games has a solitary assist and doesn't have chemistry on any of the lines that he's played on. He's been a black hole of offense, decent defensively though. But he could be a player that's moved.
The Jury is out on
Sean Couturier - Has only been here for 3 games and only put up an assist. Its tough to judge, but he may slip to second line duties.
Brett Kulak - Hasn't played a game since he arrived here. But he probably wouldn't survive being waived. I hear he makes a mean parm popcorn though.
Brian Elliot - Played in three games with one shutout and a 9.01 svpct, but Bronco seems to be hesitant to trust him.
So this leads to the three burning questions
1) Are the Blue's going to make the playoffs?
There's still a glimmer of hope, this team has been a lot better over the last 20 or 20 games since their horrendous start, but they dug themselves a deep hole that they might not be able to crawl out of, its likely that the 10 games after the holiday break will define this teams season
2) Is Crunch doing a good job?
I honestly thought that this would be a strong team coming out of the start of the season, but it utterly failed and Crunch has spent time rebuilding on the fly while rebuilding the farm and acquiring draft picks. On paper this team is decently deep, but still lacks and offensive catalyst. However it is pretty stingy on paper. When I ask the question about Crunch, I can firmly say, he's not a good GM right now, he's not a bad GM, he's just a GM.
3) Sellers/Buyers/stand pat?
This is a tough question, this isn't a old team or young team, they do have a ton of contracts coming up with most of them being RFA's, so there's some runway on this team going into next season, Its also not a cap team with a little over 3 million in cap space to play with. However if the team falls out of the playoffs, players like MAF, and Gio and Coutuier could bring back a wealth of future assets at the trade deadline. But after talking with Crunch, I know he's hyper competitive and impatient, so a long rebuild might be a hard pill to swallow.
Ice Chips
In the middle of a major pandemic, and heading into a Christmas season with questions around lockdowns, and illness and slow vaccinations, we still have the CPHL. I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a way better 2021.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Last edited by CaptainCrunch; 12-21-2020 at 11:16 AM.
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