Your thoughts on the first month?

[jura]

Plus/Minus is one of the worst stats out there. There probably isn't a player on this team that has been more consistently excellent at ES this year than Pietrangelo.

he's been brutal last game and kinda off in movember

 

[EastonBlues22]

he's been brutal last game and kinda off in movember

You and I have very different interpretations of "brutal," and even if you think he's been "off" in November (which I generally don't agree with), who by your estimation hasn't been "off" on this team over that span?

Explain to me what he did wrong on the 1st, 4th, or 5th goals that he was out there for, because I'm not seeing anything damnable. The 2nd goal came off his neutral zone turnover, but the result was a 2 on 3 that shouldn't have been a problem (if Schwartz and Bouwmeester hadn't poorly communicated who should take Foligno), and even then the resulting shot should have arguably been stopped.

Goal three was a puck that deflected off his stick. Bad luck, or arguably ill-advised (though it looks like Pietrangelo's stick is never moved toward the puck, so IMO it's more that the puck was shot off it), but not really what I consider "brutal" defense in either case.

Regardless of whether last game was one of his best this season or not, I honestly don't know how anyone could come away from watching the season thus far thinking Pietrangelo hasn't been one of the team's best ES players. Frankly, it kind of boggles my mind.

 

[The Note in MI]

You and I have very different interpretations of "brutal," and even if you think he's been "off" in November (which I generally don't agree with), who by your estimation hasn't been "off" on this team over that span?

Explain to me what he did wrong on the 1st, 4th, or 5th goals that he was out there for, because I'm not seeing anything damnable. The 2nd goal came off his neutral zone turnover, but the result was a 2 on 3 that shouldn't have been a problem (if Schwartz and Bouwmeester hadn't poorly communicated who should take Foligno), and even then the resulting shot should have arguably been stopped.

Goal three was a puck that deflected off his stick. Bad luck, or arguably ill-advised (though it looks like Pietrangelo's stick is never moved toward the puck, so IMO it's more that the puck was shot off it), but not really what I consider "brutal" defense in either case.

Regardless of whether last game was one of his best this season or not, I honestly don't know how anyone could come away from watching the season thus far thinking Pietrangelo hasn't been one of the team's best ES players. Frankly, it kind of boggles my mind.

Three stars of the game stats show you're in the majority on that.

 

[Majorityof1]

You mentioned Stastny for defensive situations. Who is Stastny's line (as for who you put out for stops)? I thought they tried him with Tarasenko recently, who is not who I would want to put out for a key defensive stop normally. The lines don't have clear roles, or even consistent make-up.

The Ott vs McDavid contrast doesn't strike me as particularly helpful. I would rather have a line-up with 2 McDavids and 1 Backes than with 3 McDavids and 0 Backes. I think they'd win more games in the NHL. Its kind of a ridiculous way to express that, but the point is that the team lacks an identity and unless they find a new one with a new style of play, they are missing some of the ingredients needed to be successful at the "old" style from last year.

I hedged a bit at the end of my statement because I wasn't sure if you were referring to players or lines. It is clear what couple players we want out there but not what lines because the lines are such a mess. On defense, I want Stastny at center with some combo of Steen, Schwartz, Berglund as the wings. But we don't run any combination of those as a standard line. On offense, I'd want Schwartz-Stastny-Tarasenko, but again, we never run that. So your point, referring to the lines stands. I just meant we have individual players we can double shift to get out more when it matters.

We probably should just agree to disagree on the 2nd part. I'd take 3 McDavids all day. Also, I think Brouwer sucks. Nothing I saw last year changed that opinion, not even falling on his face to score the game winner against Chicago. He takes horrific penalties and kills possession. His hits rarely do much. He provides average defense and gets in position to occasionally convert on chances generated by better players. But you can find those skills without the downside pretty easily.

I have been known to have unreasonable biases from time to time, so maybe that's it. I just know that before Brouwer joined Fabbri and Stastny, nobody thought much of him. We didn't have these issues we are currently facing the year prior to getting him when we had Backes and no Brouwer. No Backes is the real issues, not no Brouwer.

 

[Ranksu]

Missing Brad Shaw could be much bigger issue in long run when looking our d-core and how they perform?

Do you guys remember from last season how many times our dmens take a charge on o-zone, get in the cycle and use their offensive skills? We saw that first ones in this regular season, but remembering those games when Pietro, Jbo and guy like Parayko just take the puck and cycle behind the net and created scoring changes.

So how well our d-core played last spring should we praise Brad Shaw or Hitch?

 

[542365]

Bort is our +? MINUS leader

Pie -11

big picture
http://i.imgur.com/VxqHt1M.jpg

And this is exactly why +/- is the worst stat in hockey. You're trying to claim that Vladimir Tarasenko is better defensively at even strength than Kyle Brodziak? Do you honestly believe that? Nail Yakupov is unquestionably a better defensive player than Alex Steen. No doubt....

It's a terrible statistic and it has been forever. It fluctuates wildly year to year, which shows it's unreliable in any way. Ovechkin went from a -35 to a +10 in one year. Did he suddenly learn to be a great defensive player? Of course ****ing not.

I have been to every Blues home game this year and I can't even count the amount of times I've said "wow that was a great play by Petro". He does literally everything well. He passes well, he reads the play well, he has a fantastic defensive stick, he kills penalties well, he communicates well, he pinches well, he skates well....everything. I just don't understand the hate that he gets. It's the same guys that hated Pronger because he wasn't perfect. He's been our best and most consistent player every year since he came into the league.

 

[Stopsight]

Yeah Pietrangelo has been fantastic this year.. great defensively and even hitting the net more. The whole team has had overall a mix of average play and poor luck. The team PDO is right at the bottom of the league. That usually tends to correct over the season.

For example: the blues are at about 96% right now for PDO. Even bad teams which will naturally be lower save % and shooting % ended last year above 98%. That 2% is a huge difference when dealing with these kind of numbers.

 

[StLHokie]

They're still figuring it out. I think that their has been heightened responsibilities for the defensemen, and outside of Petro, they haven't all gotten a good grasp of it yet. The defensive core needs to get used to playing more odd man rush hockey. They no longer have a group of defensive oriented forward that can support the play in the case of an offensive zone turnover. I think the forwards are also being given more leniency in playing more individually in the offensive zone due to the increased number of skill guys.

What I think the team really still could use is improvement on the forecheck from some of our skill guys. Tarasenko doesn't scare opposing defensemen coming in on the forecheck like Patrick Kane can, despite their offensive abilities being similar.

 

[Brian39]

I think it is worth noting that we are currently tied for the 3rd best record in the Western Conference.

This has been a frustrating season so far and I think all of us would agree that there is about a 1% chance this team could play any worse than it has thus far. We have numerous guys who have drastically under-performed and I don't think anyone has drastically over-performed. I still think this team improves at least slightly and finishes 97+ points.

 

[wannabebluesplayer]

Too much transition. They are what I thought they would be.

 

[Captain Creampuff]

They are where I thought they would be. Sloppy goaltending and lacking real depth down the middle is going to kill us in the long run.