This is the softest I've seen them play in a looong time. Fucking Brad Boyes is outplaying them. I hope that this is what rock bottom looks like....and as I'm typing we get the "too many men" penalty.

Wow, they sucked tonight. Lots of empty seats at the rink and a very quiet crowd at the end of the game.

It was an embarrassing effort. With only Schwartz and Berglund out now there is no room for excuses anymore. Fabbri was invisible for most of the game. Paajarvi has absolutely no identity as a player, he just kind of skates around not sure what to do. Stastny packed it in halfway through the first period. I don't think I heard Shattenkirk's name once through the whole game.

Ozzies09tc wrote:The blues look as charles barkely would describe as "turr-bull"

I personally don't believe anybody could've phrased the current state of this team any better. To paraphrase Hitch's Hat, it seems Piggy Smalls has been slaughtered. This team has virtually no life and something will have to change or we are screwed.

Ouch... The gap control has been very poor the last 5-6 games and for much of the season but tonight's gap control was the worst I have seen in awhile from this team. Absolutely no excuse for our defense to be giving that kind of time and space to any team. I like hitch a lot and he is a world class coach and hockey mind but if he can't get the best from a very skilled and deep team it maybe time to move on if this continues. Every coach has a shelf life and hitch maybe quickly approaching his.

Oates2Hullie450 wrote:

Ozzies09tc wrote:The blues look as charles barkely would describe as "turr-bull"

I personally don't believe anybody could've phrased the current state of this team any better. To paraphrase Hitch's Hat, it seems Piggy Smalls has been slaughtered. This team has virtually no life and something will have to change or we are screwed.

That's why I wanted to rebuild this year. They are playing just like they did in last year's playoffs. A less talented team cleaned their clock tonight. Like I said before , for whatever reason Hitch can't win with these guys, or they won't win for him. They should have turned over the roster if staying with Hitch....YFHC? yeah, so much for that.

I'm thoroughly disgusted. I know they were tired from last night. But, there's no excuse for laying down at home against such a weak team, when they are relatively healthy, at least compared to when they had 4 regulars out (3 of them top-notch players), and they were WINNING under those unfavourable conditions). Now, everyone but Schwartz is back, and they are getting slaughtered by teams with "expansion - level rosters".

Robb_K wrote:I'm thoroughly disgusted. I know they were tired from last night. But, there's no excuse for laying down at home against such a weak team, when they are relatively healthy, at least compared to when they had 4 regulars out (3 of them top-notch players), and they were WINNING under those unfavourable conditions). Now, everyone but Schwartz is back, and they are getting slaughtered by teams with "expansion - level rosters".

I don't mind them losing if the effort is there, but tonight they let a shit team come in here and have their way with them in their own building. Remember when teams didn't want to play here? This is just a big disorganized mess.

Interesting comments from Hitchcock in the post-game presser, he's calling out the team like I can't really remember him doing before. This isn't looking good though, the players seem to be at odds with coaching right now, and its becoming clear with the way the team is playing. Not to mention it looked like Jake was yelling at Hitch when he was pulled mid-game. Yea we're a mess right now. Haven't heard from Army in a while, I have a feeling we're about to.

Oates2Hullie450 wrote:Interesting comments from Hitchcock in the post-game presser, he's calling out the team like I can't really remember him doing before. This isn't looking good though, the players seem to be at odds with coaching right now, and its becoming clear with the way the team is playing. Not to mention it looked like Jake was yelling at Hitch when he was pulled mid-game. Yea we're a mess right now. Haven't heard from Army in a while, I have a feeling we're about to.

We used to see one of these crappy games once in a while, but they're becoming the norm. Somebody's gonna get sent packing.

Toronto played it's third game in four nights. No excuses.

insideout wrote:Toronto played it's third game in four nights. No excuses.

Federko said something to the effect that playing a hard game last night in NY was an excuse, but excuses are for losers. Even he's having trouble trying to put lipstick on this pig.

Safe to say the Blues' run of dominance over Eastern Conference teams has ended?

insideout wrote:Safe to say the Blues' run of dominance over Eastern Conference teams has ended?

I doubt that they'd beat the Chicago Wolves right now.

Robb_K wrote:What good is putting in a different goalie, when the skaters are not playing? Why does this talented team almost always play down to the competition? If Hitchcock can't get good players to play, he should be replaced.

I think this is it. I hate to be a fire the coach guy, but I have never seemed a less motivated group on the ice.

Wasn't able to catch the game last night--from reading here sounds like it was as bad as a scoreline of 4-1 to the Leafs would indicate. Hopefully they start picking it up.

UMSLBlues12 wrote:Wasn't able to catch the game last night--from reading here sounds like it was as bad as a scoreline of 4-1 to the Leafs would indicate. Hopefully they start picking it up.

It was completely demoralizing and the team showed no hustle at all. It was probably worse than it looks.

Oates2Hullie450 wrote:

UMSLBlues12 wrote:Wasn't able to catch the game last night--from reading here sounds like it was as bad as a scoreline of 4-1 to the Leafs would indicate. Hopefully they start picking it up.

It was completely demoralizing and the team showed no hustle at all. It was probably worse than it looks.

Is there something lower than "no hustle at all"?

Oates2Hullie450 wrote:

UMSLBlues12 wrote:Wasn't able to catch the game last night--from reading here sounds like it was as bad as a scoreline of 4-1 to the Leafs would indicate. Hopefully they start picking it up.

It was completely demoralizing and the team showed no hustle at all. It was probably worse than it looks.

Agreed that it was worse than the score indicated. I made one post after last night out of complete frustration with our awful gap control. After calming down and analyzing the game objectively the errors in their current play are inexcusable. The turn overs forced and unforced are out of control and I cannot remember the in recent era seeing a Blues team have this many turnovers many of them being unforced. The play at the blue lines has been poor both getting pucks out to transition and getting pucks in and keeping pucks in the offensive zone. The team consistently loses puck battles in important areas of the ice. Our transition has been off from early in the season. When the Blues are trapped in their zone I can't distinguish what system they are suppose to be playing. Too many penalties. As mentioned and I will mention again extremely poor gap control possibly the worst in the NHL at this current time. The one thing that has not been a let down is goaltending. Both goalies on most nights have given this team every opportunity to win. It seems like the wheels have just fallen off. There are no excuses for this type of play from this team. I would imagine change is coming not sure what it will be but the higher ups in the organization can't be pleased.

Was the effort last night the beginning of a mutiny?

Turk Sanderson wrote:

Oates2Hullie450 wrote:

Ozzies09tc wrote:The blues look as charles barkely would describe as "turr-bull"

I personally don't believe anybody could've phrased the current state of this team any better. To paraphrase Hitch's Hat, it seems Piggy Smalls has been slaughtered. This team has virtually no life and something will have to change or we are screwed.

That's why I wanted to rebuild this year. They are playing just like they did in last year's playoffs. A less talented team cleaned their clock tonight. Like I said before , for whatever reason Hitch can't win with these guys, or they won't win for him. They should have turned over the roster if staying with Hitch....YFHC? yeah, so much for that.

You are absolutely right. Last year's playoff loss was so de-moralizing that a housecleaning would have probably been rejuvenating. As it stands right now this team will be in a dog-fight for fourth place. Chicago is better and both Dallas and Minnesota have both surpassed the Blues.

Oates2Hullie450 wrote:

UMSLBlues12 wrote:Wasn't able to catch the game last night--from reading here sounds like it was as bad as a scoreline of 4-1 to the Leafs would indicate. Hopefully they start picking it up.

It was completely demoralizing and the team showed no hustle at all. It was probably worse than it looks.

It was worse than it looked. The team looked like they had partied in Brooklyn the whole night before and flew in an hour before the game to play.

There was no preparation and no game-plan that I could see.

Right now the team is Tarasenko, who is starting to try to do too much, Jake Allen who is getting frustrated, a good young rookie in Parayko and that's it.

Jaskin and Fabbri are really still learning. Paajarvi is a total non-factor. The veterans that have been brought in have been average. Reaves and Ott bring nothing to the table offensively.

Stastny has been an utter disappointment. I don't like him and Steen on the same line as Tarasenko either.

The defensemen and forwards look like they are playing different games. Nobody on defense is stepping up and taking any kind of leadership role.

It really is a mess. Somebody needs to take charge of this team.

39hurricane wrote:

BluesSK wrote:Gotta score there Stastny.

Stas is currently snakebit. he needs to score bad but just cant

i can't count how many times i've said that in his tenure here. another over-rated hometown hero.

TR-USA wrote:Absolutely no excuse for our defense to be giving that kind of time and space to any team.

which is exactly what we were saying during last season's playoffs.

Turk Sanderson wrote:That's why I wanted to rebuild this year. They are playing just like they did in last year's playoffs. A less talented team cleaned their clock tonight. Like I said before , for whatever reason Hitch can't win with these guys, or they won't win for him. They should have turned over the roster if staying with Hitch....YFHC? yeah, so much for that.

exactly. many of us said it, backes or hitch needs to go. neither did, and we're witnessing a continuation of the playoffs. if we can see this, why couldn't the execs? hitchcock didn't have any contract to hold over us. if backes had you hamstrung enough to not get rid of him, then you're in the situation, no matter how much you like hitch, to go a different way. doing nothing is inexcusable.

TR-USA wrote:The turn overs forced and unforced are out of control and I cannot remember the in recent era seeing a Blues team have this many turnovers many of them being unforced.

something i've said many times this season. i can't remember seeing a team turn over the puck so often. ever. shit, our guys are straight-up passing the puck to the other team sometimes.

BluesSK wrote:It was worse than it looked. The team looked like they had partied in Brooklyn the whole night before and flew in an hour before the game to play.

yep.

BluesSK wrote:Right now the team is Tarasenko, who is starting to try to do too much, Jake Allen who is getting frustrated, a good young rookie in Parayko and that's it.

yep, and they are going to ruin tarasenko by allowing this to happen. he's going to forget what he used to do. it can't be hitch - he's had plenty of pure goal scorers on his teams and handled them fine, and tarasenko is more of a complete player. tank is trying to put this team of cry babies on his shoulders. the weight will crush him.

BluesSK wrote:It really is a mess. Somebody needs to take charge of this team.

right now, we're looking at two options:
a) no one is, clearly not backes.
b) someone is, and it's backes. we're seeing the result of an absolute mutiny.
B doesn't make sense to me - some of these guys are professionals and losing wouldn't sit well with them, no matter the cause. they all know how tight these points are in april. so again, same discussion as after the playoffs last seasons - backes is a fucking cancer, or at best dead weight to this room. i like what he brings to the ice most nights, and it will suck to play against him, but it simply isn't working. if the "you can't fire the whole team" thing is true, it's either hitch or him, or both, at this point. but my guess is we'll do nothing yet again.