BLUES "You saw the game. We can't play like this… It's unacceptable and we should fix it."
Those were the words of Vladimir Tarasenko after the St. Louis Blues lost 7-4 to the Montreal Canadiens at home on Saturday. It was the Blues' fourth consecutive loss after beginning the season 3-0.
The team finally found some offense - the Blues' previous three games featured only a combined three goals - but Jordan Kyrou scored twice, Noel Acciari recorded his first as a Blue, and Tarasenko scored his third of the season, but defensive struggles ensured that four goals wasn't enough against the Canadiens.
"We're not simple right now," Blues Head Coach Craig Berube said. "We complicate things. It was a good first period, I thought, and from then on, like in the second, we've got complete control in my opinion and then we let it slip away."
The Blues will still be without forward Brandon Saad (upper-body) for Monday's matchup with the Los Angeles Kings. Berube said after a team practice Sunday that Saad was still "a ways away."
KINGS The Los Angeles Kings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 on Saturday to complete a three-game homestand (2-1-0) at Crypto.com Arena in LA.
The team is .500 to begin the 2022-23 season, going 5-5 in its first 10 games. The Kings' 10 points ranks fifth in the Pacific Division.
The Kings are looking to build on last season's performance, which saw a third place finish in the Pacific and an appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Los Angeles acquired forward Kevin Fiala from the Minnesota Wild in June and signed him to a seven-year contract. Fiala had a career-high 85 points (33 goals, 52 assists) with Minnesota last season.
Other things have remained the same…Anze Kopitar still serves as the Kings' captain and continues to perform at a high level, defenseman Drew Doughty is back after an injury-plagued season and Jonathan Quick has gotten the majority of the starts between the pipes, playing seven games compared to Cal Petersen's four.
HEAD-TO-HEAD The Blues went 2-0-1 against the Kings last season, winning both games at Enterprise Center. The Blues are 4-1-2 in their last seven games against Los Angeles at home and have not allowed a power-play goal to the Kings in the last four meetings overall, going 13-for-13.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES Jordan Kyrou, who had a slow start to the season but managed to light the lamp twice on Saturday against Montreal. Kyrou posted a career-high in goals (27), assists (48) and points (75) last season.
KINGS Gabriel Vilardi, who has points in three straight games for Los Angeles. Vilardi leads the Kings in points (11) and goals (seven).
BLUE NOTES
Vladimir Tarasenko is set to play in his 614th game with the Blues on Monday, moving ahead of Al MacInnis and into a tie with Barclay Plager for 12th on the all-time franchise list… The Blues did not allow a power-play goal through the first five games of the season, their longest streak to open a season in franchise history… The Blues are 3-2-0 when scoring first… The team's power play has scored in five of its seven games this season.
The St. Louis Blues will try to snap one of their worst slumps in recent years when they host the Los Angeles Kings on Monday.
The Blues have been dealt four consecutive regulation losses for the first time since Craig Berube took over as head coach during the 2018-19 season. Opponents have outscored the Blues 20-7 during the current downturn.
Meanwhile, the Kings earned an impressive 4-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs at home Saturday in advance of their trip to St. Louis. The Kings have won two of their past three games after a 3-4 start.
It leaves the Blues feeling urgency to clean up their game.
"It's unacceptable to play like this," Blues winger Vladimir Tarasenko said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We have some time before next game to figure it out.
"It has been a few rough games for us. Obviously losing sucks, but I've seen worse. ... We're confident in ourselves. The main thing is we should play better at home, and away games. We're about to fix it, that's it."
The Blues at least got their offense going again during a 7-4 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. Winger Jordan Kyrou scored a pair of goals to give him three on the season.
Pavel Buchnevich came off the injured reserve list to join Tarasenko and Robert Thomas on the top forward line. But the Blues had multiple defensive breakdowns while blowing a 3-1 lead.
"Obviously, we're struggling right now," defenseman Colton Parayko said. "A little adversity for our group, but what we got to do is we've got to fight through it. We got to stick with it, stick together as a group. That's a good thing about our group is we're going to stick together. We're gonna work our way through it."
Kings coach Todd McLellan has shuffled his forward lines by moving Gabriel Vilardi to the top group with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, while sliding Kevin Fiala down to the third line.
Fiala scored a goal and added an assist against the Maple Leafs while driving play for his trio.
"Kevin coming in has added a dimension," McLellan said. "I thought him playing in the position he did tonight balanced things out a little bit more. He's been able to create with workers and creative players in his career, so he did a real good job there."
Vilardi has been on the top line after finally overcoming an earlier back injury and gaining his offensive touch. He has three goals and an assist in his past three games.
"I don't think there's a more confident guy around here," Kopitar said. "Listen, it's great to see. Obviously, he's had a couple tough years, a couple uncertain years, so the fact that he's gotten off to a start that he is, it's great for us, it's great for him and we're gonna need him to compete."
McLellan also gave forward Rasmus Kupari his first look this season. The team recalled him from Ontario of the American Hockey League on Saturday.
Blues winger Brandon Saad (upper-body injury) is questionable for Monday. He has missed the past four games.
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If things continue to go badly I’m just about ready to see Alexandrov and Kessel get some NHL time and possibly also McGing. Obviously not all at once but an injection of some youth certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Maybe they just really really want to draft Connor Bedard?
If this trajectory continues it'll be very difficult to see Chief making it the whole season. I don't know how much blame should be put on each guilty party--his job is to coach, Army's job is to not give asinine contracts that they'll never get out from under and the players have to play.
Right now the defense sucks, the offense sucks, Binnington is being hung out to dry but numerically he sucks too. Kyrou is an incomplete hockey player making premium money, Parayko, Krug, Binner, Schenn all probably untradeable. Army created a mess when he was giving out NTC's like halloween candy, it was a mistake to try to keep the window open when this team is so drastically different from the Cup team. It was a mistake to not shop Barbashev when he was coming off career high numbers that he'll absolutely not replicate. It will be a major mistake if they don't trade Tarasenko to the highest bidder come deadline time and end up losing him for nothing. They have nearly zero resemblance to the Cup team starting with what appears to be a total lack of heart and character. Once they get down they roll over and die, I mean what the hell was that second period all about? Then things settle down but it's too little, too late.
Yes, it's only eight games but I don't see much to be excited or hopeful about. Calling it now, MacTavish or Ott is the interim head coach by Christmas, rebuild gets underway by March.
Well, Armstrong saying this isn't a threat - is threatening the players. Per Army, Chief isn't going anywhere and it's not a system issue. This is a "competitive" issue - which is on the players to compete. We'll see players move before Berube goes anywhere based on this presser.
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It's on guys like Kyrou getting paid out the nose and then falling off the face of the Earth, -13 already. Krug, O'Reilly, Barbashev, no one is producing. We could have seen a player like Barbashev moved when his value was sky high and a guy like Nikita Alexandrov could have easily slotted in his place.
The defense is a colossal cluster, Mikkola is one of the very few players on this team on the happy side of +/- and Chief scratches him against the Kings who exposed everything bad about this team. Yeah, Mikkola wouldn't have singlehandedly won the game but Jesus H Christ why scratch the guy? Krug, Parayko and Leddy are all way underperforming... but I forgot, they get paid the big bucks so they have to play.
I'd rather see this team struggle through the growing pains of a rebuild starting with getting Tucker and Kessel on the 3rd pair defense, getting Alexandrov and McGing up and then adding Bolduc definitely and maybe Snuggerud to the mix next season. All I see is guys who are far too comfortable playing like absolute crap. O'Reilly -11, 1 point in 8 games in his contract year? Get real. Where's the leadership and the heart? This version of the Blues absolutely sucks a big fat one and I can't really speak to what goes on in St. Louis media but I'd bet a steak dinner they're taking it very gently on them which doesn't help. At least in the NY media when someone is either A) playing like trash or B) acting like a total moron--and believe me we have a lot of that going on with the Nets and that toolbag Kyrie Irving right now, they get lambasted on all the radio shows and in the papers.
Armstrong can say what he wants, he's more than a little to blame for this predicament. Personally I'd get rid of him before anyone else.
Also, from listening I'm trying to decide if what he was saying about Berube amounted to a vote of confidence because votes of confidence often lead to firings.
Armstrong admitted in that presser the issues start with him. Perron was a bigger loss in the locker room, IMO, than they realized he would be. It didn't sound like a vote of confidence for Berube. It was Berube has been able to get players who weren't performing at the AHL level to perform. He's done the same at the NHL level. So the issue isn't the coach or his ability to get players in the right positions. It isn't the system, because the system has worked at both the AHL level and the NHL level. It's straight up on the players not competing, not working hard enough to play as a five-man unit, making a bad play and making the bad play worse by giving the puck to another player in a worse position, not protecting their goaltenders at all, and a myriad of other things. He actually said Kyrou looks more like a $2.9 million player right now, which is admitting that big contract was probably a mistake. Armstrong certainly didn't pull any punches as to what he did in the off-season and what needs to be done to fix it - which is the players start flipping competing if they want to stay in St Louis or Armstrong is going to move people (but he didn't say that last part out loud).
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One other comment that stood out to me: Armstrong said players when they don't score or a play doesn't go the way it should, they aren't re-engaging (my words - they are acting like Mitch Marner who is notoriously pouty when one of his shots doesn't go in), and are essentially hanging their heads (paraphrased), instead of getting after their opponents. When he said this was a competitive issue, he made it extremely clear this is 100% on the players.
My addition, this team has had plenty of players who've heard the press touting the talent in the top 9. Well, they are playing like a team over-relying on this talent, instead of competing. Back on Perron, I've heard it said many times he was a guy who would lighten up the room when things were difficult - from multiple players on multiple teams Perron played for. Who is that guy on the Blues now? I don't know of one other than maybe Schenn, but it's only a two team sample size for Schenn and he's coming off a rough season which he spent most of playing with busted ribs.
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trade Kyrou while value is high because he's overrated
O'Reilly is not captain material
Parayko sucks
jeez glen richter, rebuild fetish much?
no rebuild, just maybe make a trade to put people on notice. it's still early in the season. I'd package O'Reilly/Kyrou & Parayko for a few players with a pair. Then again, in this new wussified NHL you may have a locker room revolt "my best fwiend got twaded! WAHHH!". Flush this league.
it's like nobody remembers dynasties. dynasties generally keep the same core players. duh. Craig Berube's coaching style demands a certain type of player: someone with testicles, so hey, let's get rid of a bunch of those players! ship out the wussies
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ship out the wussies