****The Official St. Louis Blues are my favorite hockey team thread****

[Megatron96]

The 2021-22 St. Louis Blues (and my favorite NHL team) make franchise history!!! 5-0!!!

"Vladimir Tarasenko scored two goals and Ville Husso recorded his second career shutout as the St. Louis Blues remained undefeated in five games with a 2-0 victory Monday night over the Los Angeles Kings.

The Blues are off to a 5-0 start for the first time in franchise history. The Kings haven't won since their season opener.

It was Tarasenko's first multi-goal game since Feb. 14, 2019. Husso stopped 34 shots in making his first start of the season between the pipes. The Finnish goalie, in his second season, improved to 2-1 against Kings.

Kings goalie Jonathan Quick had 32 saves in falling to 12-16-3 lifetime against St. Louis."

The rest of the story here:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl...cid=uxbndlbing

The St. Louis Blues are off to great start, going 5-0 to lead the Central Division after defeating the LA Kings tonight, for the second time in three days. Setting another franchise record, the Blues have scored 25 goals in just 5 games, and lead the NHL in GF/G.

The Blues play CO next in three days.

LET'S. GO. BLUES.

[TribalElder]

They should move to KC

[DJ's left nut]

They gave us something to watch other than that shit show in NOLA.

For that I am grateful.

[Oz_Chief]

LGB!

[Baby Lee]

Thought you might appreciate, a good buddy of mine posted on social earlier.

He and his family have been stalwarts, MoF, back in the day we had to detour their wedding proceedings so they could get pictures in tux and gown on the ice at a game.

[ThyKingdomCome15]

Currently the best sports team is Missouri. Not even close. I love the Blues. They're taking the sting out of this mini Greatest Show on Turf collapse. (Except the Rams started 0-6 and had more HOF players on it's roster. Brutal.)

[alpha_omega]

An official Cards thread and now this???
F everything St. Louis (except our valued members who just happen to live there).

[DJ's left nut]

So Joel Hofer....not great.

Has given up a couple goals tonight by just having real shitty technique. By all accounts he's a talented kid but he's clearly not ready.

[ThyKingdomCome15]

Let's go Blues! Shut the door.

[DJ's left nut]

3 points in the first 2 games of the Cali trip.

Those are always difficult ones and with the Blues having some COVID headaches to deal with, you'll take it.

Damn weird game tonight but hey - win's a win.

[Megatron96]

LET'S GO BLUES!!!

Love beating the Sharks. And doing it in fairly convincing fashion is icing on the cake.

The Blues are legit.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

So Joel Hofer....not great.

Has given up a couple goals tonight by just having real shitty technique. By all accounts he's a talented kid but he's clearly not ready.

I don't think he's ready yet, but 2 of the 3 goals were in part due to major **** ups by the Blues or a deflection.

The 1st goal from Burns was the only one I think that can be attributed to technique(he was in position, but the puck went under his pad).

2nd goal was a breakaway short handed goal by Couture with Kyrou making a terrible pass leading to Faulk mishandling the puck before Couture scored 5 hole.

3rd goal the puck was deflected by a Shark player.

Overall, I thought he was fine given the circumstances. Nothing to be concerned about.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

I don't think he's ready yet, but 2 of the 3 goals were in part due to major **** ups by the Blues or a deflection.

The 1st goal from Burns was the only one I think that can be attributed to technique(he was in position, but the puck went under his pad).

2nd goal was a breakaway short handed goal by Couture with Kyrou making a terrible pass leading to Faulk mishandling the puck before Couture scored 5 hole.

3rd goal the puck was deflected by a Shark player.

Overall, I thought he was fine given the circumstances. Nothing to be concerned about.

The 1st and 3rd goals were both technique.

The 3rd was REALLY bad. He barely had to slide left to right and in so doing his pads went WIDE open. That's an easy save if he maintains his technique and just keeps his blocker down.

It's exactly the sort of technique goal I'm talking about. Yes, it's impossible to have adjusted to that deflection on the fly, but that's why technique is so important. Keep the stick down, keep the pads tighter on your slide step and that's an easy save.

It's what always frustrates me so much about the Blues broadcast on some of those goals. "Oh well X had no chance on that save..."

Well no, not if he opens his 5-hole up when he moves 18 inches to his right, he doesn't. That's why you're not supposed to do that. Proper technique makes that a routine save.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

LET'S GO BLUES!!!

Love beating the Sharks. And doing it in fairly convincing fashion is icing on the cake.

The Blues are legit.

Without RoR and without Schenn most of the night.

Saad looks damn good and Neal's been a sneaky good pickup. Reminds me a little of Morrow that season we got him for cheap and he had a few drops of gas left in the tank.

With Tarasenko playing at a high level and guys like Walman giving you credible efforts, this is a damn good team. It still lacks the high-end punch that teams like Colorado can throw at you, but it's awfully deep. It can roll 3 dangerous lines and a 4th that isn't completely punchless. That makes you a really dangerous road team because the home team can't use having 2nd change to neutralize your top line.

So if you can stay out of the penalty box and force some offensive zone draws, you're going to get yourself in a lot of nice matchup situations where your 2nd line (and often even your 1st) is playing a less defensively capable line because they've just been used against another semi-dangerous line.

That depth helps a lot and not just when you get your 3rd line against their 3rd line. It helps you occasionally get your 1st line against their 3rd line.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

The 1st and 3rd goals were both technique.

The 3rd was REALLY bad. He barely had to slide left to right and in so doing his pads went WIDE open. That's an easy save if he maintains his technique and just keeps his blocker down.

It's exactly the sort of technique goal I'm talking about. Yes, it's impossible to have adjusted to that deflection on the fly, but that's why technique is so important. Keep the stick down, keep the pads tighter on your slide step and that's an easy save.

It's what always frustrates me so much about the Blues broadcast on some of those goals. "Oh well X had no chance on that save..."

Well no, not if he opens his 5-hole up when he moves 18 inches to his right, he doesn't. That's why you're not supposed to do that. Proper technique makes that a routine save.

I still think that would have been a hard save to begin with given that he was screened and it was deflected. We can agree to disagree. But we are aligned with thinking the first goal was poor technique.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Without RoR and without Schenn most of the night.

Saad looks damn good and Neal's been a sneaky good pickup. Reminds me a little of Morrow that season we got him for cheap and he had a few drops of gas left in the tank.

With Tarasenko playing at a high level and guys like Walman giving you credible efforts, this is a damn good team. It still lacks the high-end punch that teams like Colorado can throw at you, but it's awfully deep. It can roll 3 dangerous lines and a 4th that isn't completely punchless. That makes you a really dangerous road team because the home team can't use having 2nd change to neutralize your top line.

So if you can stay out of the penalty box and force some offensive zone draws, you're going to get yourself in a lot of nice matchup situations where your 2nd line (and often even your 1st) is playing a less defensively capable line because they've just been used against another semi-dangerous line.

That depth helps a lot and not just when you get your 3rd line against their 3rd line. It helps you occasionally get your 1st line against their 3rd line.

I'd rather play Neighbours and have him learn on the 4th line than play an ancient Neal who has no future with the team and is just a body.

Walman/Mikkola are both JAGs and I'd love to see the Blues upgrade over them by acquiring a 3rd pair LD (if they don't get a top 4) or playing Santini.

I'd love to keep Tarasenko, but trading him makes the team better in the future by getting a top 4, though it probably doesn't help to trade him this season.

This team shows a lot of promise if they can play a consistent two way game. I'm not concerned about scoring(the Blues have 4 very good lines they can roll), but the defense could get exposed unless it tightens up a bit.

I don't like Krug paired with Faulk given that I don't believe their style of play compliments each other well. Krug needs basically a better right handed equivalent of Scandella to let him take liberties on offense while lightening his pressure on defense. Same can apply with Faulk and a left handed partner, though I think Faulk can shoulder the load more on defense better than Krug.

I also would like to see Husso show he can be a consistently good backup to lighten Binnington's load. In an ideal world, Binnington plays ~50 games and Husso plays ~30 so Binnington doesn't get warn down. I trust and believe Binnington is an above average and good starting goalie. Can't say I feel that way about Husso backing up yet.