Just a Glimpse

The Blues showed us, yet again, a glimpse of their potential.  The first period of last night's Blues/Blackhawks bloody battle was a flash of some good old time hockey.  I'm pretty sure I was on the edge of my seat the entire first twenty minutes.  But, all good things come to an end, I guess.  There was no way the Blues could match the intensity of the first period and neither could the Hawks.  The difference was that the Hawks settled down and played a controlled, composed game while the Blues, well...fell back into some familiar bad habits.

Missed shots, blind passes, and many failed attempts of clearing the puck...Man, I'm tired of saying that.  Even though the Blues could not catch the Hawks, they had some great scoring opportunities.

The following are some problems the Blues are having (in my opinion):

The power-play - Ok, it's getting better, but not every goal has to be pretty. Spread out, keep your head up, and make crisp, dedicated passes.  Also, use the one-timer! Five on Four is supposed to be an advantage!   Ya know what else helps? A lot of other teams do it too...Get in front of the net! This goes for full strength play as well. Hey defenders, don't carry the puck from blue-line to blue-line and try to force a pass or make a move.  Dump it in and reduce the odd man rushes in our end.  And forwards, where's the forecheck?! It sometimes makes an appearance, but we got to win battles in the corners.

Now, I'm going back to the whole getting in front of the net "thing."  We have some capable big bodied forwards on this team. Backes, Berglund, Winchester, and Tkachuk. Backes has great hands and needs to screen and wreak havoc for the opposing goalies. Berglund, stop being a sissy and use your body.  We all know you can shoot, but I don't even know if you're capable of a penalty. Winchester, has proven himself in some of the recent games.  He might not have the stick handling skill of Backes or Berglund, but he covers a lot of ground and can pose a threat in front of the net.  Tkachuk has a good reputation around the net. He needs to just keep doing what he's doing and retire on a good note.

We'll see what these next couple of practices will do for the Blues. With the new leadership of Davis Payne, it's all up in the air. What I hope to see is a simpler game at home and a newfound respect for the fundamentals of hockey.