On the job for a matter of hours, new Blues coach Mike Yeo stepped in front of his players and took command of the locker room. He began to deliver what sounded like a motivational speech on how they needed to stick together.
"He said, 'On this team, we've got to have each other's back,' " Blues center Patrik Berglund said. "I was like, 'Where is this going?' Then I saw he looked over me and I knew he was looking at my haircut. And then he said, 'Whoever gave Bergy that haircut, we've got to get that guy.' "
Berglund, whose head is shaved around the sides and back but has a flop of hair on top, could only blush.
"He was messing with me and obviously it's me, so the boys were loving that chirp," Berglund admitted.
"Oh yeah," captain Alex Pietrangelo said. "Second day on the job and you throw that out there, everybody got a good chuckle."
Yeo acknowledged taking the jab, but the balding 43-year-old coach wanted it on the record that he prefaced it by saying, "Not that I should be the one to call out anybody on their hair but ..."
Too late, it was already out, and the word is already out that the Blues' 5-1 start under Yeo may be a direct result of a freer, looser environment around the club.
The Blues were mighty successful under Ken Hitchcock, who was fired Feb. 1 and replaced by Yeo, but there was strong belief that in the latter years of his six seasons the players felt smothered by his persistent personality.
"It is (looser)," Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said. "Every coach has their style and Hitch is someone that we responded to and we embraced his style of coaching for a long time. But I think it's any coach that coaches for a long time with one group of players, it gets harder and harder to come back with the same thing and expect that same drive.
"Mike has done a good job of changing little things around so it feels different around here, but when we go out there, we're asked to do the same things. What he wants out of us isn't much different than what Hitch expected. But those little moments in the locker room just kind of remind you that there's a different guy in place and things are just a little bit different around here."
Yeo said he likes "having fun" and called the Blues "a fun group," but he believes the team's success has allowed him to have that approach. In addition to winning five of the first six games and going 4-0 thus far on a five-game road trip, the club has outscored opponents 20-8 and the goalies have a .960 save percentage.
"The one thing I'll say is we've won some games, so it's easy to be light when you're winning games," Yeo said. "As coaches what you're always hoping is that some of the message that you're trying to get across to the players, they do it and then they get results. We're in a business where you ask the players to do something and obviously if it's not paying off, it's a little bit more of a difficult sell."
The Blues were expected to get a jolt with the coaching change, but this is perhaps more than anyone expected.
"There's a difference between getting a jolt where a team plays with a lot of energy, but the same issues are still present in the game," Blues forward Alexander Steen said. "For us it hasn't been that way. I think it's been more, not just because of an emotional change, but more because of a structured change. The structure and the way that we've been playing has made us look faster and more energized _ it's not the opposite.
"It's not our energy or our emotion that have created more speed. When you have the puck and you control the games like we have, it doesn't make you as tired. When you're chasing guys around, that's when it makes you look slow and like you don't have energy. That was the case a lot in the first half of the season and in the last 10 days I think we've looked a lot more fresh."
But beyond those changes, Yeo has stayed out of the way.
"He hasn't put much emphasis on himself, he's allowed us to work through this ourselves," Shattenkirk said. "He just wants us to go out there and play with that pride and that passion that we seemed to have been lacking most of the season. He's been just a great motivator for us. I think he trusts us and knows that we're smart hockey players.
"He says it all the time: We were a great hockey team before he got here, so he knows that it's within us. He's just trusting us to take the reins and kind of run with it a little bit. When it comes down to game time, that's when we've been able to focus and drive ourselves, and I think he realizes that. He can ask us and expect us to do our best, but we have to give him that in return."
It could be weeks before the Blues truly know if they were riding a wave or it was something more.
"The most important thing for me is that we've gotten some results," Yeo said. "I feel like there's a recognition in our group of what our best game is starting to look like. We've spent almost our whole year trying to figure out what our identity is. I think we've seen some things that are starting to show up that gives me confidence going forward that we can have success."
Now if they could just find Berglund's barber.
