Daily Faceoff Live: The Binary Blues
On the latest episode of the Daily Faceoff Show, Frank Seravalli and Matt Larkin discussed the streaky start to the St. Louis Blues’ season.
Frank Seravalli: Let’s drop the puck on this, the binary Blues. Win streak or losing streak, that’s it, that’s all they know. Win three to start the season, lose eight in a row and they have now gotten back to level ground at a solid 8-8 after a five game winning streak. Wow, where do you go with this St. Louis Blues team Matt? It’s unbelievable to see this type of swing and I’m sure its emotional for the players as well. They were questioning themselves big time, looking like they needed a spark of some kind.
Doug Armstrong, their GM came out and flogged the team at a certain point. What do you make of the St. Louis Blues who are suddenly right back in the thick of things in the Central Division?
Matt Larkin: Well, I think this team will be questioning itself again very soon. We know, of course, I called this team a paper tiger going into the season. They were very poor defensively last year. It was Ville Husso masking a lot of those problems. They had a great power play, they lost their power play specialist David Perron. So I had them as my sort of bust team of the year. Now we’ve seen on paper it appears like the Blues are back.
The Blues are not back Frank. Look at the start of the winning streak November 9th. Since that time, which team has allowed the most scoring chances in the NHL? The St. Louis Blues. This team is still terrible defensively, they were outshot 51-24 in their last win. What has happened here Frank is just goaltending. It’s Thomas Greiss getting hot, it’s Jordan Binnington getting hot.
This is the same team, the Blues are porous defensively and these tendencies will come back to bite them. There is another losing streak coming.
Frank Seravalli: It’s amazing because you look at their stats here, both of their goalies above .900 save percentage. Maybe it’s based on the pure volume of shots that they’re getting. You call it the John Gibson effect from the Anaheim Ducks over the last number of years. His save percentage was always high because he was seeing a ton of rubber in Anaheim.
But in this case, what’s your verdict on where the Blues go? I’m guessing by the fact you called them a paper tiger and saying that they’re the same team, that you don’t see the blues as a playoff team? I do, I think that they’re going to find a way to get in. I think they have too much talent not to.
Matt Larkin: Yeah, I think their forward depth is still strong, and if you look at the results during this winning streak they’re also generating a lot of quality chances. So I think they’re kind of back to firewagon hockey they were playing last season. So, I do think this team could hover around .500. I don’t think they’re a horrible team by any means but I do think if you look at the defense corps in particular, Doug Armstrong just did not add to that group.
Re-signing Nick Leddy who actually had some pretty poor results in the playoffs, I don’t think was a good idea. I just think this team will be trading chances in a lot of track meets in their near future.
Frank Seravalli: It’s amazing to see some of the streaks in the NHL. We already talked about how streaky the Blues are. We’ve been going streaking all season long. The New Jersey Devils have the second-best winning streak in franchise history, after hitting 11 games with their win over the Leafs on Thursday night. The Boston Bruins have won 10 in a row at home to open their season. Go up and down the NHL’s standings, there’s some kind of impressive streak or skid somewhere. That’s been going on all season long, through these first six weeks of the year.
You can see the rest of the show here…