(Get) A Sporting Life

 If you have been trying to watch the St. Louis Blues attempt to play hockey of late it would be hard to believe the word optimism could ever be in play. The losses continue relentlessly, often in the "never in the game" style, but increasingly in a "lose from winning position" flair which is enough to make someone turn on the news for an upbeat change of pace. (Wow, plane crashes and LUNACY!) This team still can't score with the regularity needed to win consistently in this league. The coaching staff knows they have precious few natural goal scorers (one is precious few), so they attempt to make up for it by getting what I call "process" goals, i.e. goals scored by virtue of constant pressure, crazy bounces, accidental deflections, etc. Basically, any goal you can get from a player who doesn't have the knack for scoring them on their own. The Blues are something like zero for their last 12-15 breakaway chances, and zero for their last 25-30 2 on 1...

 The St. Louis Blues have not had many out-of-character results so far this season. For the most part they have been handling the teams they usually handle and doing nothing against the teams that seem to always have their number. There is some solace to be had just knowing that you are going to probably beat Calgary, and will probably lose to Columbus, just as the sun will most likely rise in the East tomorrow. Granted that isn't an ideal set of affairs for a sports team, but Blues fans have learned to take what they can get. Which is why it is fair to say last night's victory over Utah was unusual. The Blues do not play well against that collection of players. Ever. So, any victory would be noteworthy in this matchup, but the resilience they showed last night was an added bonus. The Blues still have crappy puck luck, but last night they didn't let it get them down and, miracle of miracles, the puck luck evened out for the game. For a change the PK wasn't always runnin...

 Hockey seasons will have their ups and downs. For whatever reason, be it injuries, a challenging schedule, an inexplicable loss of form, it is difficult for teams to maintain a good level of compete for an entire season. The good teams just limit their funks. The St. Louis Blues, however, are not a good team. They are a poor team, and poor teams sink under the weight of "here we go again" night after night.  I will admit I only watched the first two periods of last night's 5-0 loss to a Colorado team that had been scuffling of late. Two periods were more than enough to get the gist of it. It was also enough to lead me to a diagnosis as to what ails the team. It isn't that they are young and are going through growing pains. No, the reason the Blues are so bad is that the veterans who are being paid to be the backbone of this team are not doing their jobs. I'm talking about Schenn, Buchnevich, Faulk, and even Binnington and Parayko. Over $30M of the salary cap is b...

 For a moment there I thought something big might be brewing. Word was Pavel Buchnevich and Brandon Saad were absent from practice (where Monty was evidently pushing them hard after last night's dismal showing,) and there was to be press availability from Army after the practice. Immediately my mind was filled with happy thoughts of the Blues General Manager fleecing another NHL team of valuable pieces for an on-again off-again Buchy and the desiccated husk of Brandon Saad.  Sadly, it was not to be.  Instead, we learned that Saad had been waived because the Blues couldn't find a trade partner willing to give anything up to acquire him. If no one puts in a claim for him Saad will report down to Springfield to clog up their lineup for a change. Army also emphasized there was no intention of recalling anyone interesting from Springfield to take these roster spots (Saad's and the recently traded Scott Perunovich's.) So, for Blues fans what you see is what you get. That will...

 I have to say I am not terribly impressed by the St. Louis Blues moving Scott Perunovich to the New York Islanders for a conditional 5th round pick. I felt this season Perunovich was scapegoated a little bit by the Blues. If you look at his advanced metrics they actually were among the best of all the Blues defensemen, but he simply couldn't crack the lineup as the Blues continued to prefer the aging Suter.  Don't get me wrong, Suter isn't a complete dumpster fire, but when he has a bad game he is a terrible liability out there. Perunovich at least offered a skill set moving the puck that the Blues could use more of, especially on the power play. Indeed, the Achilles heel of this team is the generally awful state of their special teams. In the limited play he got on the second unit Perunovich showed a little something, but, once again, lack of consistent playing time kept the unit from clicking. (It didn't help the Blues have had so few PP opportunities this season.)  ...

Shit gets you down. A lot of shit gets you way down. And sometimes sports doesn't give you a break from shit, it only piles it higher and deeper. Granted my shit baseline is pretty deep these days. I've been unemployed for ten months and, if employers are to be believed, I'm simply unemployable unless 'you'd like fries with that' becomes my career path. So, you can imagine how "helpful" it is to me to sit down and watch Adam Wainwright blow out his Achilles tendon, or to hear the news last autumn about Oscar Taveras. And then we get to the St. Louis Blues. There is no way I can do a post-mortem because I simply cannot stand it or them anymore. They have mattered so much to me since I was a 10 year old kid that they have used me up. It turns out 36 years of futility is my limit. It is impossible for me to believe someone could be a fan, and I mean a real fan, and last longer than I did. Every year they trot out some Cubs "fan" who claims 70 ...

It goes without saying that every team wants to win. It also goes without saying that every team has fans that are crushed when their hero's fall short time and time again. So, as far as it goes and all things being equal, every team needs to win championships. However, all things are not equal. There are some franchises whose dry streaks just scream out a little bit more insistently because of their history or their place in their respective sports hierarchy. So, I'll be giving you my perspective and ranking these extra needy franchises starting at the 10th most needy and ending with the most terribly needy franchise. Oh, the places we will go! #10) Seattle Sounders - MLS "Wait. What?" many of you are saying. It seems incongruous that a team that has only been in the top flight of American soccer since 2007 should be on this list. However, the Sounders are in many ways the model MLS franchise and a poster child for what the league always hoped the sport could ...

When it comes to the Blues I've decided I have to look forward. Looking back is only a recipe for acid indigestion. The trouble is there is almost no way to accurately look forward with this team. However, I'll do my best by mixing my predictions with my preferences. Say Goodbye To St. Louis These are the unrestricted free agent players that should be moving on: Andy McDonald Scott Nichol Jamie Langenbrunner Jeff Woywitka Andrew Murray McDonald was the highest paid forward on the Blues this season, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this team's inability to score. Nichol never found his way back into the lineup once the chemistry of the CPR line asserted itself. The other three? Thanks for the memories. With Restrictions Here is where things get dicey. The Blues have some players who are restricted free agents that they will need to take care of but they can't be profligate. Alex Pietrangelo should get pretty big money. H...

If the Blues lose tonight, which seems only too likely, do not expect to see a post mortem from me for a few days. It's always too fucking painful to think about at first. I can get away with that shit because I ain't getting paid.

...and immediately I am consumed with this sense of impending doom (which I guess is some sort of metal band.) Then I remember; It's Stanley Cup Playoff time and I'm a Blues Fan. Oh, that's right.

That is the only word that can be used to describe the Blues' performance this Stanley Cup Playoff season. The sad fact is the Blues are lucky to be still playing. The Blues didn't really win either of the first two games of this series against the Kings. In reality Quick brain cramped them away. The best the Blues have been able to muster this postseason is to put themselves in a position where they are only two fortuitous bounces away from winning or one bad bounce away from losing. At no point last night did I believe the Blues were going to win that game. You could see it coming. Even when Pietro scores with 41 seconds remaining to send the game to overtime, it only had the feel of postponing the inevitable. Our forwards do not play well enough for us to win tough games in the playoffs. Period. As a group they have combined for just four even strength goals in five games. I don't care how well you play defense, you cannot win consistently without better offensive pr...

...and all I can do is wish him luck in the attempt. I think this bodes ill: Hitchcock reunites CPR line for Game 5 Ken Hitchcock took the "C" out of the CPR line in Game 4 and it wound up being a bad "PR" move. After the Blues 4-3 loss to LA in Game 4, many were lamenting the absence of Adam Cracknell in the lineup. Cracknell's replacement on the fourth line was Vladimir Tarasenko, who played only 5 minutes, 51 seconds in the game. Hitchcock's intent with Tarasenko was thought out. A couple of the Blues' top forwards are banged up, and Tarasenko's availability would give the Blues a safety net, moving him up higher in the lineup if they couldn't continue. Which confirms that Hitch had no intention of playing Tarasenko meaningful minutes unless someone got hurt and was unable to play. That is bullshit. I have no problem with Cracknell getting back into the lineup, he never played his way out of the lineup. My problem is Andy ...

I hate writing about a loss. It makes me angry at the time and brooding upon it later doesn't help. As far as I can tell, when it comes to sports, there is no such thing as catharsis. So, I'll make a couple of points about the Blues excrementally bad Game Four and move on. 1. Hitch screwed up the insertion of Tarasenko. Period. He got it wrong. I don't care how many games he has won as a coach he fucked this up. The Blues would have been better off keeping Cracknell in than using Tarasenko the way they did. Cracknell would have contributed, Tarasenko was not given a chance to contribute. So, what's the point of playing him? To shut up the fans who think scoring an average 1.67 goals a game is no way to win in the playoffs? Really? 2. McDonald has been terrible. Bench worthily bad. 3. The D sure did pick a shitty time to play their worst game in the last 20 Blues contests. Some individual blunders were worse than others (there was one pinch that led to a 3-on-1 th...

From the PD : Tarasenko, who was a healthy scratch in the first three games of the Western Conference series, will take the place of Adam Cracknell in the lineup. A right winger normally, Tarasenko will start out on the left wing on the fourth line with Chris Porter and Ryan Reaves. Cracknell was one of the obvious choices to sit, as evidenced by the fact even someone as dumb as myself predicted it. That being said I hate slotting Tarasenko into the fourth line. I suppose the idea is to limit his minutes 5-on-5 and still have him available for a spot shift on another line or on the power play. However, this really could hurt the play of a fourth line that was a real asset on the ice. The Kings are not able to roll out their fourth line as often. They just aren't good enough to keep from getting exposed. Over the course of a playoff series this advantage could payoff hugely, as hard minutes can be lifted from our other lines who will be fresher later in the series. I'd mu...

The question of the day, as it pertains to the Blues/Kings playoff series at least, seems pretty clear: does anybody have anybody exactly where they want them? Hell if I know. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the first three games have followed a preferred script for the Blues. They have been hard hitting, tight checking, well goal-tended affairs with few scoring chances and no open ice. I also think they may be giving me an ulcer. Seven total goals in three games results in contests where there is precious little margin for error. If either team ever gets a two goal lead that will signal the first moment where a team gets to take a breath. I realize the Blues will not want to change a whole lot going into Game Four. They've been good and the basic game plan they are working with is a proven winner. However, being shutout in Game Three underscores a basic fact about hockey: you need to score more goals than the other guy to win. To that end I hope Hitch decides tonig...

....Jaro Halak and the St. Louis Blues? Holy shit. This isn't the prettiest offensive team you will ever see, and that lack of goal scoring could bite us in the ass in the end... but in the meantime, the Blues play killer defense and the goalies stop most everything they see. Welcome back winning hockey in the STL! It's been awhile.

On a morning when all the sports talk shows are buzzing about a blown call(s) at the end of the St. Johns v. Rutgeers basketball game, it must be said the talk shows are missing a much worse call last night. That call happened in the Blues v. Blue Jackets game. Dan O'Neil of the St. Louis agrees with me: Ian Cole appeared to get his first NHL goal, but it is disallowed. Cracknell carried in, passed to Cam Janssen, who taps it to Cole. The puck went past the Columbus goal. Janssen is then tripped from behind by Jared Boll, and makes contact with the goalie as he falls. Cole shoots the puck in from a bad angle. But they disallow the goal on the grounds of goalie interference on Janssen. Yet another absolutely ridiculous call by an NHL official, impacting a game. There simply is no worse officiating in sports than in the NHL. Yep. Luckily the hockey gods were also appalled by the crappy officiating. Cole got his first goal later on and the Blues won the game. However, its kind of awfu...

...one of those shitty shitty days that makes you question why anyone would ever want to have a rooting interest in sports. It's only 1:24PM and already: Notts County has lost 2-0 to Leyton Orient. The Blues are down 3-0 to the Islanders, and look somnambulant. Missouri lost (again) to Kansas. SLU is down seven to Xavier halfway thru the first half. (Prelude to an ass kicking?) Hell, even the West Coast Eagle got beat down by Collingwood. Oh well...

There is nothing more exciting in sports than ownership news ! With Dave Checketts' efforts to replace the Blues' major investor still unresolved, an offer has been made to purchase the team outright from Checketts, multiple sources have told the Post-Dispatch. St. Louis businessman Tom Stillman, who is already a minority owner, is part of a group that presented a formal bid to Checketts' company, SCP Worldwide, to take control of the club. This is the only known offer for the team, an offer sources said was far less than the estimated value of the franchise. In 2010, Forbes Magazine valued the Blues at $165 million, approximately $15 million more than Checketts paid for the team and the lease on Scottrade Center in 2006. SCP has rejected the bid from Stillman's group and will continue seeking financial support to replace the Blues' major investor, TowerBrook Capital Partners, and maintain control of the club. It's believed by sources that Checketts would step a...

All I can say is thank God the Blues made the first round draft choice they sent to Colorado in the Stewart/Shattenkirk trade conditional. Right now we would own the #9 selection in the draft, and I have every reason to believe the Blues will be in "competition" for a top five pick when all is said and done. Right on cue, the Blues dropped another two points tonight when veteran defenseman Barret Jackman forgot how to defend a two-on-one break. Instead of making the puck handler shoot the puck while giving the goalie a clean look at it, Jackman decided the situation was best defended by genuflecting the way a 10 year old Catholic school boy does before the altar when he knows Sister Mary Severity is looking on. Well done, Mr. Jackman. Well done.