No identity? What are you talking about?
The Blues have a clear-cut identity: They're a team in transition that wants to contend for a conference title while playing effective, speedy hockey (except when it's not effective) and shying away from the heavy hitting and crease bullying (yet getting blamed for not doing that well _ and praised when they occasionally do it well, even though it's not necessarily the game plan to begin with).
The Blues are weird.
It's infuriating and deflating, but there is some optimism because, for one, there likely will be at least one deadline deal (or sure as heck should be) and two, well, clicking playoff teams aren't always clicking in early January.
And really, with the Blues, it could be worse: Remember the first month of the season, Oct. 12 to Nov. 12, when they went 7-6-3?
But what's discouraging is, as the Blues headed into this weekend, their losses haven't been "good" losses _ meaning when they lose, it's not like they played some valiant game but lost due to a puck-bounce in the second; they lost because they looked lost.
And then they'll come out the next game looking like a team of Tarasenkos.
Yet, honestly, even Vladimir Tarasenko himself doesn't always come out looking like Tarasenko. Occasionally, there will be a lull. He's too conspicuous of a factor to be inconspicuous in other games. In all of December and into January, only one time did Tarasenko finish in the minus in a win (Dec. 6 against Montreal), and never did he finish with a positive plus-minus number in a loss.
"I think our brand of hockey," coach Ken Hitchcock said at Saturday's morning skate, "when we play winning hockey, there's certain elements of five-on-five and on special teams that are really consistent and when we play that way, you feel like you can win forever. I think for the last three weeks or so it's been inconsistent in that level. It's not what the opposition has done to us, it's mostly what we've done to ourselves, and I've got to tell you, most of it is with the puck. ...
"Our management of the puck, to me, has been very inconsistent. When it's been on the mark, like it was against the Flyers and against Chicago, it's very, very effective, and when we get careless and reckless with it, we pay like we did against Carolina. We gave up four breakaways against Carolina and you can't win like that."
And then you think about how they lost to Carolina, a game in which the Blues failed in a puck battle against the neutral zone boards, which led to a Hurricanes attack and goal. Hitch said he's liked the Blues' checking of late, but there have been some frustrating moments _ and the Blues' forecheck has been an issue in many of the recent losses.
And in regards to team speed, the Blues, honestly, just might not be as fast of a team as they thought they'd be.
How do you fix it?
If the strategy is the strategy, then perhaps you need better players to see the strategy through.
I preface the following by saying, this is not an ultimatum. It would be very tricky to pull this off, and moreover, very risky. But for conversation's sake, let's at least discuss the possibility of trading for Matt Duchene. Similar to how Dexter Fowler checked a lot of the Cardinals' boxes (on-base percentage, speed, decent glove), Duchene does so with St. Louis: he's speedy, he plays the center position and he's young, turning 26 this month. He's a good player on an embarrassing team, the Colorado Avalanche, and he has two years left on his deal. In Duchene's previous three seasons, he averaged 61.3 points _ to put it in perspective, 61 would have been the second-most points on last season's Blues. Also, in Tarasenko's previous three seasons, No. 91 averaged 63.3 points, though that's skewed by his smaller total of 43 points in the first of those three years.
OK, so by now you're probably on to the problem: Most good teams are going to want this guy. If St. Louis wants to acquire him, it would have to work out a deal likely involving Tage Thompson and many other assets, while not dealing young studs such as Jaden Schwartz or Robby Fabbri, since they're already entrenched into the team.
Oh, and the Blues' most enticing trade piece, Kevin Shattenkirk and his expiring contract, isn't enticing to teams such as Colorado; Shattenkirk is enticing to teams like, well, St. Louis _ pretty good teams looking for a boost into the postseason.
So, yeah, there aren't great odds that Duchene will don the Blue Note. But it could be a franchise-altering donning.
The Blues continue this yo-yo season on Tuesday against Boston, then on the road, where the Blues are often awful.
Perhaps this is time to bring up the 2013-14 Kings. They only won three of their final seven games and then lost their first three playoff games. And then they won the Stanley Cup.
In other words, anything can happen in that danged tournament. But will .500 hockey for the rest of the season even get these Blues in it?
