Blues Discussion Thread 2018-2019 - Part VII

[CoMoBlues]

These are the playoff avatars. Its the Good, the Bad and the Ugly....meant to represent the Blues' season. It was Bad and Ugly first, then Good.

Its just a common theme. Forums do this every playoffs. Our forum doesn't have many people with the skill to put them together, but I thought this year's were pretty amusing.

I get the Eastwood reference, Mike Eastwood anyone, but who is that “Nerdy” looking guy with glasses, or what does he represent?

 

[JoshFromMO]

I get the Eastwood reference, Mike Eastwood anyone, but who is that “Nerdy” looking guy with glasses, or what does he represent?

That's Darren Pang lol

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I get the Eastwood reference, Mike Eastwood anyone, but who is that “Nerdy” looking guy with glasses, or what does he represent?

Darren Pang doing his Don Cherry parody.

 

[Spektre]

Maybe you can trade ME for a competent PP coach? I don't even know which thread I'm on!!! My Pee Wee coach knows how to get players to follow good PP strategy! Oh, I forgot, he's deceased. Oh .... wait! Almost ANY pro coach knows proper PP strategy. You just have to find one who can get the players to do what you tell them to do. The Blues have performed significantly worse than their 2 shift PP roster ever since Mike Yeo took over. I expect Berube to pick a no-nonsense PP Assistant, Coach this off-season, after he is signed as "permanent" Head Coach,
who will bench players who don't follow his directions.
.

I’ll move my reply to the season thread.

I’ve never understood why the failure to score on PP’s isn’t looked on more harshly by coaches. I realize you’re not going to score on every single PP but I would pound in the players heads that they should score every time.

This is a very simplistic view but you can get a video game like NHL 18 and teach how to open lanes and take advantage of having the extra man. I’m sure the players practice and study film but they continue the same strategy. They don’t know how to give themselves consistent good opportunities on the PP. It really shouldn’t be hard. Just about every team in the league plays a box zone when they’re on the PK. It’s not hard to either open a lane for a one timer or get the puck on goal and literally outman the opposition for the rebound.

Meh I don’t expect changes till next year but ya it sucks knowing when your team gets the advantage that it’s not really an advantage.

 

[Majorityof1]

I’ll move my reply to the season thread.

I’ve never understood why the failure to score on PP’s isn’t looked on more harshly by coaches. I realize you’re not going to score on every single PP but I would pound in the players heads that they should score every time.

This is a very simplistic view but you can get a video game like NHL 18 and teach how to open lanes and take advantage of having the extra man. I’m sure the players practice and study film but they continue the same strategy. They don’t know how to give themselves consistent good opportunities on the PP. It really shouldn’t be hard. Just about every team in the league plays a box zone when they’re on the PK. It’s not hard to either open a lane for a one timer or get the puck on goal and literally outman the opposition for the rebound.

Meh I don’t expect changes till next year but ya it sucks knowing when your team gets the advantage that it’s not really an advantage.

The reason its not looked on as harshly by the coaches is that we actually do score at a decent rate. Nobody scores close to every time. That is just a ridiculous goal. 20% is around the threshold for an above average powerplay and we have been there for most of the season. We are 10th in the regular season at 21.1%. TB was deadly, and #1 at only 28%. Prior to the finals, we were also middle of the pack in the playoffsat 19.4%.

The problem is not scoring goals, but generating momentum. When we score, we do so off a single nice play or shot. Its almost a fluke (but a fluke that happens a lot because we have some talented players). The issue is that when we don't score, we generate no threats or momentum. A PP should turn the momentum of a game, even if it doesn't produce a goal. Ours have literally killed momentum throughout the year. We need to be consistently dangerous. I don't care if we don't score a ton more goals, I just want to make the other team work to stop us.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Lack of PP performance this season and an abysmal home record MAY cost us the Cup.

As mysterious as the PP shitshow is, why oh why do we perform so poorly on home ice?

Is their something in our at home game prep that is killing us?

 

[TheDizee]

Lack of PP performance this season and an abysmal home record MAY cost us the Cup.

As mysterious as the PP ****show is, why oh why do we perform so poorly on home ice?

Is their something in our at home game prep that is killing us?

its a done deal, it cost us a cup. this is something that could and SHOULD have been address during or after the winnipeg series. now every team copies what dallas did to us and they fail to adapt and adjust.

the home ice issue comes down to a failure to defend and terrible forecheck. in most of the games they lost, they get blown out or give up a ton of goals in. only one where that really wasnt the case was the OT game vs winnipeg and g5 vs dallas. you could also contribute the abysmal PP to this issue.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Besides a PP coach, we need a sports psychologist to explain to these guys why screwing over your home fans is ultimately bad for business.

 

[Xerloris]

We have a bright future here in St.Louis. Three of the last four years we've made the playoffs. Two of the those three years we made it to the WCF or deeper. All three of those years we made it out of the first round. We were in last place in January and we're one win from the cup. If I had told any of you that in January you would have thought not only was I mad but you would have also taken it happily. It's not like we were the best team the league has ever seen and got swept in the first round. As if that would ever happen. All I am saying is this deep playoff run is not a fluke and win or lose come game seven I fully expect to see us challenging for the cup for at least the next several years if not longer.

Every year we failed before the salary cap is irrelevant. We didn't have the money to compete with wealthy teams. Now it's an even playing field and we look just as good as anyone has.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Besides a PP coach, we need a sports psychologist to explain to these guys why screwing over your home fans is ultimately bad for business.

We've done this for a while. Between it and struggling when cast as the favorite, the franchise needs a semi-exorcism to get rid of those demons once and for all.

 

[Louie the Blue]

Every year we failed before the salary cap is irrelevant. We didn't have the money to compete with wealthy teams. Now it's an even playing field and we look just as good as anyone has.

Not that I don't disagree with past seasons having any reason to dictate future success, but, ownership from Shanahan through Laurie was willing to spend-that's why B. Shanahan and Stevens were brought in for instance as well as Laurie losing millions on the Blues(even though he ran the team into the ground when he was selling it as well only buying them to get a NBA team) because of contracts he gave out pre-lockout.

The only time the Blues, post-lockout 2005-2006, have been strapped financially was during Checketts' ownership. Stillman and Co., while not the richest ownership group in the league, have spent to the cap consistently and likely will continue to do so as long as the Taylors give the green light.

 

[carter333167]

Not that I don't disagree with past seasons having any reason to dictate future success, but, ownership from Shanahan through Laurie was willing to spend-that's why B. Shanahan and Stevens were brought in for instance as well as Laurie losing millions on the Blues(even though he ran the team into the ground when he was selling it as well only buying them to get a NBA team) because of contracts he gave out pre-lockout.

The only time the Blues, post-lockout 2005-2006, have been strapped financially was during Checketts' ownership. Stillman and Co., while not the richest ownership group in the league, have spent to the cap consistently and likely will continue to do so as long as the Taylors give the green light.

I've always had a sense that the Blues actually were one of the wealthier ownership groups in the league....at least plenty wealthy several times over to support an NHL franchise.

 

[Xerloris]

Not that I don't disagree with past seasons having any reason to dictate future success, but, ownership from Shanahan through Laurie was willing to spend-that's why B. Shanahan and Stevens were brought in for instance as well as Laurie losing millions on the Blues(even though he ran the team into the ground when he was selling it as well only buying them to get a NBA team) because of contracts he gave out pre-lockout.

The only time the Blues, post-lockout 2005-2006, have been strapped financially was during Checketts' ownership. Stillman and Co., while not the richest ownership group in the league, have spent to the cap consistently and likely will continue to do so as long as the Taylors give the green light.

You can try to say money wasn't an issue but it clearly was for the vast majority of the teams existence. Small market team was unable to compete with billionaire owners of teams like Chicago, New York, Detroit, Toronto. We've never had a big name free agent that I can recall choose to come to St.Louis and that's because the money being offered wasn't enough to make the city appealing. All those other teams not only had better cities but could afford to easily double anything we would offer.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Wow, we're really set longterm with our cap situation.