I posted this back in April after the Blues lost to Minnesota, but wanted to revisit it. A bang for bang convo between a good friend, PJ, and I.
Every writer needs someone to properly put them in their place when needed. A cooling stick to a guy with hot hands. For the past 12 years or so, that has been my good friend P.J. It doesn’t matter if it’s the St. Louis Cardinals, The Blues, a movie review, a comedian disagreement, musical taste, big statement about crime and poverty…P.J. will raise the hands at me if I write a shit article or ride off the rails. He is a good guy and someone I like to call a friend.
I posted my first Blues season wrapup where I broke down the latest failure of this hockey team to give anyway back to the city of St. Louis. Every time I post an article, I have this guy in my head and I would be lying if I said I didn’t aim a few paragraphs at him like I was pointing a dart gun at a man with his back turned. He’s my fiercest sports talk competitor, so when I saw a three paragraph response to my article, I got excited, weary and elated at the same time. In case you missed the article, here it is so you can get the base of the conversation. Let’s get into it.
P.J. kicked things off-

On Allen-In Game 1 he let in a soft goal but he also made some great saves to keep that game close. When you have a team that doesn’t score enough in the playoffs, like the Blues, making 25 of 27 saves in Game 1 is pretty solid. I see your point. The second goal Allen never even saw because he had three players in front of him. Actually, a lot of goalies don’t make that. Devan Dubnyk actually did let in a couple saucers from the middle of the blue line. Allen let in one soft goal in Game 1 but made more than a fair share of great saves. Pj, the Blues defense is dreadful at times. Their penalty killing had some horrible moments, and I can’t tell you how many odd man rushes they allowed in Game 1 that Allen snuffed out and stopped. He made 93 percent of his stops(and made more great ones than soft let in’s).
The biggest aggravation is that, no matter who it is that comes before them, The Blues go down too easy and there isn’t any fight in this team at the crucial time. Look at the way the Jets battled the Ducks or the way the Pens batted the best team in the NHL In the Rangers. There were overtime games and back and forth struggles. In Game 2, the Blues got very luck with Backes pushing that near goal out of the crease and Allen was huge. They dominated Game 4 but the four losses they had the team was just flat. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Kings, Hawks or Wild. The Blues have to rise to a certain level of play in the playoffs and they consistently don’t. 25 different teams have won the Stanley Cup since the Blues came into the league in 1967 and it’s disheartening. I can’t tell you that if the Blues get a different coach, cut the fat, win another 50 games next season that they will advance past the first round.