St. Louis Blues: Black in Blue Review: A Tale of Wounded Warriors

It is the season for the once No. 1 St. Louis Blues to take a not so fun slide on the icy path in the Western Conference standings.

The Blues have gone from that huge seven-game winning streak to a disasterous slide to fourth place in the Central Division, with a record of 12-9-3 for 27 points in 24 games—11th in the Western Conference. There is only a seven point difference between first place and 11th place in the conference. 

In the last ten games, the Blues have gone 3-7-0 and slipped into a power play hibernation. The St. Louis Blues' power play has done more than struggled. It is basically a non-factor and has no signs of getting better, unless they are storing power play goals like squirrels store tree nuts in preparation for the bitter cold winter. The Blues' power play is 13 for 98, a whole 13 percent for the year. They are four for 38 versus Eastern Conference teams and nine for 60 versus Western Conference teams.

Though the Blues have had some big injuries during the course of this year, they should be prepared to show off their depth. Instead, the injuries to David Perron, T.J. Oshie, Roman Polak and Barret Jackman have left the Blues with some major deficiencies on the ice.

In their place, the Blues have used Nikita Nikitin, Ian Cole, Chris Porter, T.J. Hensick, Tyson Strachan, Nathan Oystrick, Ryan Reaves, Nicholas Drazenovic, Dave Scatchard and Stefan Della Rovere. These ten substitutes have provided the Blues with zero goals and four assists for a grand total of four points in 57 games between all of them. They managed to produce a total plus/minus of minus 21 in 57 games.

                                St.Louis Blues Leading Scorers  

                           G    A    P

Andy McDonald    8    9    17   +4

David Backes       4   13   17   +6

Patrik Berglund     6   9    15   +4

Brad Boyes           6   8    14   +1

Alex Pietrangelo    2   12   14  +3

                                  Goalie Struggles 

                            GAA   W   L   OT   SO   SV%

Jaroslav Halak      2.40    10   7   2     3      .910  

Ty Conklin            3.38    2    2   1      1      .866

                              Downside 

With the absence of Oshie for the last ten games, the St. Louis Blues have gone 3-7-0.

The Blues lost Oshie to a broken ankle the same night their seven-game winning streak came to an end.  

                              Upside  

The Blues' penalty kill is at 80.4 percent and they are winning faceoffs 48 percent of the time.

They are averaging 31.5 shots per game. 

The next four games will be against Edmonton, Vancouver, Columbus and Carolina.

Gretzky Quote:

"I don't like my hockey sticks touching other sticks, and I don't like them crossing one another, and I kind of have them hidden in the corner. I put baby powder on the ends. I think it's essentially a matter of taking care of what takes care of you."