There was a time, not so long ago, when we used to produce a program just like this for every home game. We had quite the little rivalry with St. Louis Gametime. So in a nod to the past, we’re just going to give you their program for tonight’s game. Cinch it up and hunker down. It’s 24 pages of St. Louis.
Game #80 Preview
There’s always one guy. One guy that Blues fans always assure us is finally going to make the difference. The one player that Hawks fans will come to hate as he finally makes the Blues the superior team for years and years. Never quite seems to work out, does it?
Remember Vladdy Sobotka? He turned out to be a real nuisance in that first round series in 2014. Had three assists in the six games, but the Hawks couldn’t deal with his line most shifts. And Blues fans assured us that more and better was coming.
And then he fucked off to Russia for more money for three seasons. He came back just in time for the playoffs last year, which coincidentally was right about the time his contract would run out and he’d need a new one. Funny, that. Anyway, his return was hailed as the final piece for the Blues, again, and he would complete their lineup. Then they got stomped by the Predators, Sobotka has basically cashed his check all season, and now the Blues look like they could easily miss the playoffs.
It’s just another in a long tradition. Remember when they couldn’t wait to tell us that TJ Oshie had scored more goals at North Dakota than Toews? That worked out great for them. Remember when Pietrangelo was going to rack up more Norrises than Keith? Memories. Remember when Paul Kariya was the big time free agent they could never get? Did he ever actually score for the Blues or just tie the strings on his jersey into a pretty little knot? Jaro Halak would be the goalie that would finally right all the wrongs. He righted a lot, as in turning to his right to see what was behind him. This list could go all the way back through Pronger and Shanahan and who knows what else.
It’s never the guy. It’s never the piece. It’s never the time. But it’s gotten to the point where it’s so cute to let them think so.
Game #80 Preview
If you can believe it, and you probably can’t, Jake Allen has only been part of the Blues for four seasons. Like everything down there, they’ve been flagellating themselves so hard and so loudly about it it only feels like he’s been there a decade. Blues fans probably feel it’s been even longer, given the Homer-ific tale that Allen has been for them.
Let’s go back through it, shall we? Jay Gallon started gobbling up starts in the ’14-’15 season, and the team clearly wanted to shift him into the starter’s role over Brian Elliot. Allen never grabbed it with two hands, and yet the Blues force-fed him into the playoffs. You’ll recall he completely melted down, as the division-winning Blues were toppled, with no shortage of giggles, by the Wild, who the Hawks then plastered in the next round. Allen’s .904 in that series didn’t exactly wow the spectators.
Because of that playoff barf-belch, the Blues went into the next season with the tandem of Elliot and Allen, because they couldn’t in good conscience toss Elliot aside. Allen was pretty good that season, with a .920. But Elliot outplayed him with an out-of-nowhere .930, and then stoned the Hawks over seven games which will assuredly go down as the greatest accomplishment in franchise history.
But the Blues were still determined to turn the job over to Allen, extending him at the very first opening on July 1st before last season. They sold high on Elliot to Calgary, and turned everything over to Allen. And it looked like it might actually work. Allen was only about league-average last year, but sterling in the playoffs for the first time, as he was the only reason that the Blues were able to get by the Wild in five games. They were rolled hard in each of those, as he made 35 saves or more three times in those five games. There was not much he could do about a clearly superior Predators team.
The Blues must have thought he crossed the Rubicon and they could finally relax about their goaltending.
Ha. As if this wasn’t the Blues.
Allen couldn’t stop a blindfolded turtle in January and February, losing starts to known space Titan Carter Hutton. He’s rebounded in March as the Blues try and death-rattle their way into the last playoff spot. But overall a .907 does not suggest that Allen is going to be the long-term answer the Blues have desperately hoped him to be for four seasons now.
Which leaves them in something of a quandary. Allen is signed through the ’20-’21 season at a $4.3 hit. That’s not terrible, but if the Blues feel they need to bring in someone to split starts with Allen at least, they’re going to end up paying two goalies at least that, otherwise known as “The Jim Nill Plan.” It’s gone great for the Stars. Maybe some team out there thinks it can harvest out of Allen what the Blues have never been able to, but unlikely. Perhaps a team like the Coyotes or Sabres or Senators feels that if they’re punting another season anyway they can take the risk. No one’s trading for a $4.3 million backup, we know that.
What the Blues do will obviously determine their direction. There ain’t shit on shit in the free agent market for the Blues. They could trade for a backup who is angling for a starter’s role. A Khudobin or McElhinney type. But that carries risk.
What we can be sure of is that the Blues will likely get it wrong.
Game #73 Preview
Let’s not say anything more about Brad Lee (@GTBradLee) of St. Louis Game Time than we have to.
Game #73 Preview
Assuming he’s on the call tonight, at some point Pierre McGuire will start gushing about Joel Edmundson. That’s because he’s big, and he played for two different teams in the WHL with the combined population of one castrated horse. Pierre will shorten his pants because he thinks that Edmundson intimidates forwards and closes down the ice. He’s wrong.
Here’s what you need to know about the Blues. They only have one d-man under 6-2, and that’s rookie Vincent Dunn, whom they assuredly will spend the summer trying to stretch on a rack while force-feeding him shitty St. Louis pizza to try and make him bigger. And this is one of the reasons the Blues won’t go anywhere while you’re alive.
The league is getting faster and lighter. The Preds don’t have any atom-smashers on their blue line, just six guys who are lightning quick. They’re leading the division after getting out of the conference last year. The Jets d-men are big, yes, but they can all really skate. Their size is secondary. The Lightning don’t come with size there either as they move away from their Sustr and Coburn era into the Sergachev-McDonagh one. The kid currently saving the Bruins, Charlie McAvoy, can’t get on every rollercoaster.
The Blues continue to employ a big and slow defense. And it’s costing them. Jabe O’Meester is dead. Alex OrangeJello has never dominated the #1 d-man they’ve needed because he can’t get around the ice quick enough. Parayko changes direction at the same rate as an ocean liner. Edmundson is slow and dumb, to complete the set.
As long as the Blues continue to choose this path, they’ll finish up the track in the West, as teams get faster and faster. When the Blues feel like competing, they’ll start moving guys like Edmundson out for more players like Dunn. We won’t sit on a hot stove waiting for it.
Game #73 Preview
We’ve made a career out of mocking and hurling insults at the St. Louis Blues. At this point it’s basically batting practice. Luckily for us, we’ll have our bread and butter this year. Again. Because we always will. Nothing is ever going to change in Missouri, as they attempt to roll out essentially the same roster that got domed by the Preds in Round 2 last year, and basically the same one that hasn’t really ever come close to winning anything. Same as it ever was. You can set your watch to it.
’16-’17 Record: 46-29-7 99 points (3rd in Central, out in Round 2 to NSH)
Team Stats 5v5: 50.1 CF% (15th) 50.4 SF% (15th) 51.0 SCF% (10th) 8.3 SH% (7th) .923 SV% (17th)
Special Teams: 21.2 PP% (8th) 84.7 PK% (3rd)
Here in Chicago, we usually don’t get much of a spring. Even with the temperate/weak-ass winter we had this time around, the April-May stretch bounces between glimpses of actual summer and then visions of November. Usually in this place it’s just cool and gray until somewhere around Memorial Day, and then the next day is gorgeous and it’s summer/construction. We don’t slowly ramp up to summer. It just arrives like Monty Python’s foot.
So rites of spring, we don’t really recognize them. We see leaves on trees but are suspicious. Our allergies kick up at various times, so it’s not much of an indicator either. We have to make up our own. The ivy showing up on the outfield wall at Wrigley. Streetfests and outdoor music festivals start releasing their schedules and tickets go on sale. Sadly, shootings go up, if it’s even possible at this point.
And oh yeah, the St. Louis Blues reveal that nothing has changed, and they’re still a collection of dumbasses trying to play a game the sport has long ago left behind.
You can see just how weird hockey is with the two narratives going around right now. Let’s follow them.
This weekend, one team came out of the gate roaring in a playoff game. They first 16 shots at the opposing goalie, and only give up five. But the opposing goalie has an answer for everything, and then their own goalie suddenly forgets how his limbs work for just one period. Suddenly, they’re in crisis.
Another team comes out roaring, also at home. They outshoot their opponent 29-14 in the first 40 minutes of their game. And while the opposing goalie was good, they found a way to get one goal in their period of pure dominance, and that’s the difference.
And coming out of those games, the Capitals are doing it all again and are an utter mess, whereas the Predators are sitting in the proverbial catbird seat. And really, the only difference between the two was that Cody McLeod was able to corral a puck in the air and a bounce off the outside of the net, and the Capitals got no such bounce.
As much as it’s been built up, even by just me, certainly the first round of Caps-Penguins didn’t disappoint. It was just about as fast as you could hope, close, with the biggest names stepping to the fore. And yes, I mean Nick Bonino, of course.
In truth, the Caps were pretty much all over the Penguins for most of the game, kicking them around in shots and possession, the latter to the tune of a 65% adjusted Corsi-share. The Caps can get push from all three pairings from Carlson, ShattenKevin, Orlov, and even Schmidt. The Pens aren’t short of go even without Letang with Hainsey, Schultz, and Daley but it’s just not the quality of what Washington is rolling. And you don’t want to be in a place where you really have to depend on Schultz and Daley, however good they’ve looked in black and gold.
It won’t for most Hawks fans, as we know that the majority of the fanbase heads over to Wrigley once the Hawks are done (and a few lost and desperate souls head to Comiskey, which they should because the food and beer is so much better), but the NHL playoffs do continue once they’re out of it. And they kick off tomorrow night in the West, before we get to what will be the main event on Thursday in the East. And we don’t have much else to do, so let’s preview both series.
This is probably too distasteful for most Hawks fans, but I don’t really have any bile for the Predators. I think you all know how I feel about the Blues. Luckily, I think the latter is up against it.
