Here's my take after some time to reflect and see the furthered discussion here:
1. Sanford had a terrible game defensively, but he also had a few good plays around the net. But overall he was not what you'd hope to see, but neither was anyone...
2. Which brings me to this; last nights game sucked for the Blues. Binner, the top 6 of Schwartz, Schenn, Barbs, SunnyD, ROR, and Perron were invisible most of the game, except when taking or getting called for dumb penalties. The D was also over-matched, with the only real highlight being Petro's goal and a few good attempts by him and Faulk. But everyone defensively, forwards and dmen, blew coverage last night.
3. The speed thing. Yes, we beat 'faster teams' last season, and also earlier this year. The way the Blues do that though is by being in the right positions AND by pounding the shit out of the opposition. The last two games were hard nosed playoff style games for the opposition, but the Blues played October hockey. They were out of position, they skated slow for most of the night, and didn't work hard on puck battles. Point being: you cannot hit what you cannot catch. We could have had Pronger, Stevens, Chara, the hardest hitting defensemen ever on D last night, and if they played like our D did, they would have sucked to. You have to be in position AND skate hard to hit the fast bastards.
4. Troy Brouwer; he is a good team player, and while I don't 'hate him', I do not see a use for him in the NHL anymore. Maybe against some teams he would be an OK 13th/14th forward to have in the pressbox. But he doesn't have any speed and he doesn't even hit anymore, because he cannot get in the way of the faster skaters. I mean, he may be able to hit the goalie, but even most of them are too fast
Would I take Sanford over 'slow-bro'...yes. But IMHO, we need Kyrou in the lineup, and once Blais gets back, barring any injuries, send Brouwer to the AHL....he won't get claimed so he'll stay in the system as long as he reports.
5. Most importantly and someone else mentioned this, we are 8-2 in our last 10 games, and are coming off of the holidays. The Blues looked tired and disinterested last night. I don't think we will see that again vs the VGK. IMHO, as long as we go 5-2 over the next 7 games between now and the ASG (5 of which are at home, 3 of which are vs EC teams), we should be good to hold onto the top seed in the WC. It's a long season, and sometimes losing and mistake filled hockey games like this bring a team back to reality of the hard work it takes, especially now that the calendar has turned and teams are getting more desperate for points AND gunning harder when playing the reigning Stanley Cup Mother FUCKING CHAMPIONS! (that felt good to type)
6. Oh yeah, back to speed for a second. The other weapon for beating fast teams...is speed from your own players. Is it coincidence that the fastest player dressed for the Blues last night scored two goals? Not saying that if Kyrou was in we would have won, but there would have been more opportunities. We need Blais back too, as he has some fastness. That'd actually be a fun line: Blais/Thomas/Kyrou.
Lastly....LET'S GO BLUES!!!