St. Louis... looks bad

[rent free]

 

[TaLoN]

Maybe...The Blues major downfall has been their terrible Powerplay. They just can't finish. They'll control the puck well and set up but can't put the puck in the net.

They're still one of the best defensive teams statistically, they just can't score to save their lives on the Powerplay, which is huge, considering they lose so many 1 goal games.

Another Mike Yeo staple.

 

[rynryn]

Blues and Wild, no matter who's in charge, seem to be susceptible to wild swings every year with severe personality disorders. Blues and Wild fans have commiserated on this point often. Nothing seems to fix it. Just gotta hope your "highs" are enough to get you into the playoffs i guess.

 

[Thallis]

Blues and Wild, no matter who's in charge, seem to be susceptible to wild swings every year with severe personality disorders. Blues and Wild fans have commiserated on this point often. Nothing seems to fix it. Just gotta hope your "highs" are enough to get you into the playoffs i guess.

This has happened twice for the Blues, both times Mike Yeo has been involved.

 

[rynryn]

This has happened twice for the Blues, both times Mike Yeo has been involved.

Yeah i seem to recall catching up to the Blues in the standings more than a couple seasons when we had Yeo as our coach.

 

[dmj616]

I still remember my reaction when I found out Army gave Jake Allen a 4 year contract. He never has improved on his flaws that were easy to see since the first game he started in the NHL. His positioning is horrific and he flops around like a fish. The most games he started in the NHL was 47...and you give him a 4 year contract 17.4M contract based on a couple half seasons of mediocrity? It made no sense. I'll never figure that one out.

 

[melinko]

There has to be a reason this always happens with Yeo teams.
The Blues look identical to the Wild, start out looking like potential presidents trophy winners then completely fall apart. The huge drop is always something abnormal like losing 10 straight.

Its feels too convenient to blame it purely on social/relationship structure of the team. I think it has to be a systems thing that leads to mental exhaustion.

 

[LukeLocomotive]

Nashville is gonna breeze through to the stanley cup finals. West doesn't look as impressive as early in the year.

The Jets still frighten me

 

[Fantomas]

Carter Hutton channelling Terry Sawchuk on most nights, but is apparently not worthy of unseating the great Jake Allen.

 

[DevilsandBlues30]

Carter Hutton channelling Terry Sawchuk on most nights, but is apparently not worthy of unseating the great Jake Allen.

It's maddening, he has 17 less starts than Allen but only 3 less wins. Hutts has 3 shutouts to Allen's 1, Hutton is still leading the league in SV% and GAA.

It's incredible how many Blues fans are Allen apologists, I get that Allen hasn't been the Blues biggest problem but whenever Allen gets left out to dry all they say is that Hutton would've given up the same amount or more which is plain ridiculous considering that Hutton plays in front of the same team yet has the numbers he has.

 

[TaLoN]

Hutton allowed 5 goals the other night after Allen was pulled. It's far worse than just a goaltending issue.

 

[rumrokh]

Hutton allowed 5 goals the other night after Allen was pulled. It's far worse than just a goaltending issue.

That's definitely true, but Hutton has still outplayed Allen to an extreme degree.

As for other issues, it might be Yeo, but these issues were there before. The team gradually slid as the year went on and looked like a mess in January and February leading to Hitchcock's firing. Then, for a while, Allen saved the team's ass while they continued to look sloppy. Only after Allen went supernova did the rest of the team wake up. I suspect Yeo's insistence on playing Allen is that he thinks or hopes the team's mental/emotional issues are tied to or at least will be remedied if Allen does that again.

I also worry that's exacerbating the problem. I'm not even talking about sheer results of Allen instead of Hutton, but the team has to sense something like that going on. And while everyone knows your goaltender is very important, I can easily imagine attempts at sorcery via insistence on starting the underperforming goalie could feel like the coach is saying the skaters don't matter enough and he's given up on their ability to perform or motivate themselves independent of Allen.

I also worry it's somehow true that the team is broken unless their goalie plays out of his mind for an extended period of time. That they've gotten so entrenched in the belief that they can't score and can't convert on the powerplay that the only options are a one-goal-win or a loss, so they get too demoralized when a puck goes in their net whether it's the goalie's fault or not. And instead of making them do essential things like driving the net or playing stout, desperate defense, it makes them nervous and ineffective.