Saturday night's loss to the Minnesota Wild(s) was mortifying in so much that the team didn't even appear to put forth an effort until the end of the game. That's been the case often this season; or, possibly worse, the Blues forget that they have to play three periods of hockey and blow good games in the third period. You know, like they did on Friday night, again to the Wild(s).
The Blues are 3-4-3 over their last ten games, a record only surpassed in badness by the slumping Dallas Stars (3-6-1) and the free-falling Colorado Avalanche (1-9-0). Their away record is 8-13-5; teams aren't intimidated by the Blues, despite the fact that they're third in the league in fighting majors. Of course, why should teams be intimidated - most of these fighting majors seem to come in the final seconds of games that the Blues have already lost. No one's intimidated by frustration. No one cares if, after you've lost a game, you want to rough up some guys from the opposition's team to "send a message." Heck, the only message that sends is one of "hey, we can't bring it when we need to, but by God, we will jump you when it doesn't matter!" Ooooooooo. Scary.
I was so disgusted by the turn of events on Friday I couldn't even bring myself to watch the game on Saturday. That means I had it bad. I never get to see the Blues being up here in fucking Wild territory, so I usually never miss the chance. However, Friday pissed me off so badly I simply wasn't recovered enough to put myself through it again the very next night.
"But, what if the Blues had won? Wouldn't that have put things right?"
Theoretically, yes. But the reality of the situation is this Blues team had zero chance on Saturday.
Thrashing points us to the reason why:
I love my team. I love the fact that the Blues don't back down, and that they're rough and tumble. I love David "All that is man" Backes, and Barret Jackman, and Cam Janssen, and everyone on the team who plays a good blue-collar brand of game. This is why I'm a Western Conference girl, and I can't stand Eastern Conference teams. I've always felt that they lack grit and character, and only throw down when things get out of control - look at last week's Habs/Bruins game, or the Pens/Islanders brawl. The teams only fought when they didn't need to anymore. That's what the Blues are starting to do, and it's embarrassing.
All true, but it is even worse then that. In Friday's game Mikko Koivu went after the head of recently concussed Andy MacDonald away from the puck, and right in front of a blind official who pulled off his best Sgt. Schulz impression instead of doing his job. However, officials being asshats is to be expected. It happens to (most) every team. What Blues fans shouldn't have expected was for Koivu to be unmolested for the rest of the game.
This team seems to lack accountability amongst themselves. As a result you get more brawls brought on by frustration. You also get more losses.
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