2016-2017 Blues (Hockey) Season

[JCShutout]

Bah! 2-1 bad guys

[JCShutout]

Tank on a 5 on 3, and ANOTHER penalty on the Hawks! Woot! 2-2.

[MrCrowesGarden]

Attaboys. Thank God we've at least tied it after that awful Borts turnover.

[JCShutout]

Woot! 3-2! PPG!

[JCShutout]

Blues need to capitalize here, because you know the penalties will even out.

[JCShutout]

Lol, Kerbs blasting Hitch for weird lines. Saying you should just play the lines that helped you dominate all evening, instead of mixing and matching late. Go get em Kerbs!

[JCShutout]

Whew! ENG.

[JCShutout]

Lol, Seabrook scores into the Chi empty net off of Kane and Keith. 5-2

[TheoSqua]

I was really surprised at how fast the team was tonight. Their philosophical change was really apparent.

The other big difference is how far up the ice the defensemen would bring the puck up the ice. In prior years the blues defensemen would "collapse" in on defense that led to a lot of pucks in the corners and the blues were built to win the battles in the corners.

Tonight the blues were collapsing up a bit more causing turnovers just into the defensive zone, then the forwards were rushing into the neutral zone with the blues defenseman bringing the puck much closer to the blue line before passing to a forward who is breaking into the offensive zone.

It takes a lot more speed and skill to push the puck up the zone like that, since you're much more prone to turnovers and odd-man breaks the other way. So I was impressed to see the Blues pull it off so well against a team like Chicago. If they can do that all year with the fiesty backchecking they had tonight they might surprise some people.

It makes a lot of sense why they signed David Perron with that style of play. He's a really good fit for it. And if you look at our forward core it aligns really well with the playstyle of players like Steen, Schwartz, Tarasenko, and Fabbri.

[JCShutout]

They replaced Backes and Brouwer with Perron and Yak, so yeah, they are going to seem a billion times faster.

We'll see if they can keep this up. I have a feeling we will see some ups and downs as they learn a new system, but we should have enough talent to be a playoff team. Get in and you just never know.