But it is not just this current skid it is the alarming trend that no matter how much you try to wish it away isn't going away. The fact that we can't play with top teams in their own barn or even at all this year. That the same mistakes keep happening over and over and over and over and over again. The fact that so many of our star players have regressed this year into shells of what they once use to be.
I'm not wishing anything away. I'm not sure what you consider a "top team", but we've more than held our own against them this year at home. A lot of our players started off pretty slowly, but most of them are trending in the right direction. Players aren't continuing to get even worse, and what overall regression we've seen this year isn't part of some multi-year trend.
Apparently neither is leaving in Hitch as the coach. When these mistakes happen and start to make a trend whose job is it to make sure they get fixed? If these mistakes were happening for a couple of weeks and then got turned around then fine no problem whatsoever but we are now nearly halfway through the season and still seeing the same problems. To me that says they either haven't been addressed or haven't been addressed correctly. Perhaps I said it the wrong way in the original post but "breathing new life into the room" would be one of the benefits of bringing in a new coach. Get the players attention, get them up and excited to go out and learn something new, a fresh approach.
It's on the players to fix basic execution mistakes (like marking your man instead of puck watching). It's on the coaches to fix scheme execution mistakes. Coaches can (and do) point out basic player mistakes, but they don't have the time to hold a player's hand and get them to re-learn basic things that players have been taught to execute since peewee...that's not what they are paid to do, and it's not what practice time is for. It's on the players to clean up those parts of their game. If the players aren't interested in doing that, then it's time to get new players.
Great any estimate as to how long these gradual adjustments are going to take because despite everyone's attitude being that we are a playoff lock I think that is far from true at this point. We are very close to being on the outside looking in. Also, why exactly haven't we seen these "gradual adjustments" since day one because these issues have been there since day one and nobody was complaining because everybody was riding hot goaltending and the STL line, even Hitch. Now that those have cooled and were losing the adjustments come.
Coaches are tinkering with things all the time, so there's always something to work on. What we've needed to work on now probably wasn't our primary concern two months ago. At the beginning of the season, teams are often focused on building chemistry and getting people on the same page as far as basic scheme execution. As the season progresses and certain flaws prove to be chronic/costly, then attention turns to trying to iron out the kinks.
As for how long it will take? Who knows. You can't fix everything at once, and you can't fix anything instantly. Getting a team to change its collective habits is a not an easy or fast process. It takes weeks of doing things the "right" way before it starts becoming muscle memory, so a month or more to turn a few big things around isn't unreasonable. If the Blues were playing better on an individual level, it would mask many of the failures in team execution. That could turn around at any time.
Oh but I think it is. I did look up the number and against the top teams in the west (NSH, CHI, LA, ANA, SJ) we are 6/39 on the PP or just above 15%. More than 8% points lower than our league wide PP%. That 15% is from total of 12 games, 8 of which we scored the great big zero on the PP. In fact four of those six came off the back to back against the LA Kings in mid December when they were struggling badly.
Of course the Blues PP numbers are going to look worse than the their total numbers if you cherry-pick out their performance against a select group of good teams. That doesn't mean that the PP sucks, or that it is ineffective. It just means that it's generally harder to score against good teams. As a whole, other good teams are going to have the same problem.
Those five teams combine to hold all other teams to a 17% PP effectiveness against them (83% kill rate). A 15% showing against them is hardly out of line with that, especially in a small sample size. In the past, I'm sure the Blues were well below that, so there's been improvement there.
Did you happen to compare the Blues PP% against those teams against their PP% against the same teams (i.e. CHI vs ANA/LA/SJ/NSH; NSH vs CHI/LA/ANA/SJ; etc.)? The number you have for the Blues will be more meaningful if it comes in far below or above the equivalent numbers for the other contenders.
I just don't even understand what you are trying to say here. Yes of course they matter but I would be hard pressed to find a game this year in which we played where the other team had all their players 100%. One of our big strengths going into this year was depth so that an injury bug wouldn't cripple us. You say your not using it as an excuse and then you use it as an excuse.
I said that illness/injury are not something that should absolve a team or its players from ALL blame, but it is something that should be factored in when considering how a team is performing (or when thinking about firing a coach).
How many good teams have we played that had their starting goalie injured at the time? Their second leading scorer?
We've been without one, or the other, or both (plus a top 4 defender) for most of our games outside the first month of the season (which was marred by an ugly collective start, both in terms of personal play and team execution). The team execution and personal level of play have picked up significantly since that first month, but we've lost some key players for extended periods to offset the gain. At no point this season has the team been healthy and playing well at the same time. That's relatively unusual considering we are almost halfway through the season.
If you're making a final judgment about this team's abilities (or inability, I suppose), it seems premature to do so before you've ever seen it healthy and playing well.
Again it is not just this slump, it's the trend. This alarming trend that has been going on for more than just this year. Hitch did a great job he came in to a team that was struggling to make the playoffs and got us over that hump but I just don't think he is the guy to get us over that next hump and on our way to the cup.
I don't see the same trends you appear to be seeing, so I guess it's not much of a surprise that we're coming to different conclusions. I'm going to agree to disagree on this topic for now. Perhaps I'll revisit it with you in a month or so.
