Can St. Louis Blues Right the Ship?

Ryan O’Reilly did not play a single postseason game as a member of the Buffalo Sabres. Prior to being dealt to St. Louis in July, he revealed his frustration: “I’m sick of losing. It’s getting exhausting and it’s not fun.”

Here’s some of what Ryan O’Reilly had to say this morning. pic.twitter.com/ETGEZ17260

— Joe Yerdon (@JoeYerdon) April 5, 2017

It’s safe to assume he isn’t too amused by the current NHL landscape.

After handing the reins over to its youth, Buffalo has skyrocketed up the standings and sits at third in the Eastern Conference. Meanwhile, despite the O’Reilly trade, a couple of free-agent signings, quality forward prospects and solid defensive personnel, the Blues are floundering as the third-worst club in the West.

Sure, they rank 11th on the power play and fourth on the penalty kill. Unfortunately for them, most of the game unfolds at even strength — and they’re downright awful in that situation. According to Natural Stat Trick, they control 47.8% of shot attempts (24^th) and 47.8% of scoring chances (23^rd) at 5-on-5. With no puck luck in sight, the results line up with the performance: St. Louis owns just 42.7% of the goals scored (31^st) and sports an unsightly 11-14-4 record.

These struggles could be stomached if the Blues were a rebuilding franchise, but their best players (O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Alex Pietrangelo, Jaden Schwartz, Colton Parayko) are theoretically in their prime.

On one hand, the Blues aren’t so old that they can see the writing on the wall. On the other hand, they aren’t so young that they can accept growing pains as part of the process. St. Louis should be competitive right now. Its roster is neither weak enough to justify a tank nor formidable enough to contend with.

It effectively finds itself in limbo.

At Monday’s practice, tensions boiled over to the point where defenseman Robert Bortuzzo started throwing haymakers at teammate Zach Sanford. The latter hadn’t even dropped his gloves before the former started raining punches down on him. The Blues did defeat the Florida Panthers 4-3 on Tuesday, but that’s an opponent with deep-rooted issues of its own. St. Louis isn’t out of the woods yet, and the path forward is foggy.

Two things are clear, though: First, the Blues need better goaltending. The club’s on-ice save percentage ranks dead last in the league at 89.7%. Starter Jake Allen, who had developed a habit of turning in strong regular seasons before crumbling in the playoffs, is now just consistently bad. He’s posted a 3.11 GAA and 89.9 SV% in 23 contests this year. Previous backup Chad Johnson put up horrific numbers (3.55 GAA, 88.4 SV%) before being claimed on waivers by Anaheim.

Performing well in front of shaky netminders is an impossible task. Without confidence in the man between the pipes, players start gripping their sticks a little tighter and making decisions based on surviving the next shift rather than dictating it.

Second, St. Louis’ 21^st-ranked offense has failed to compensate for the team’s weakness in net. All too often, the attack looks safe. Anemic. There’s no creativity or hunger to score. Perhaps the Blues are wary of taking risks given the fact that Allen mans the crease the majority of the time. But when you don’t take the occasional gamble, the scoring possibilities dwindle. If they can’t figure this out in a hurry, they’ll struggle to stay afloat in the West.

Up front, O’Reilly is not the problem. The 27-year-old center is off to the best start of his career with 29 points in 29 games. When he’s on the ice, the Blues control 51.1% of the shot attempts, 50.7% of the scoring chances and 51.2% of the goals scored. Moreover, he’s involved in all of the offense (85.7 IPP) and seemingly everyone fares better with him than without him.

That highlights his value as a steady two-way pivot who can play in any situation and elevate his teammates.

The trouble area is depth. Beyond O’Reilly, only Schwartz has delivered the goods with 11 points in 16 games. He leads the team in CF% (53.5), SCF% (56.5) and GF% (66.7), and the Blues are at their most dynamic when he’s out there. Tarasenko, for his part, remains an enigma. His numbers without O’Reilly are putrid (47.4 CF%, 47.6 SCF%, 18.7 GF%), so splitting them up to spread the offense around is a tough sell. The talented Russian should be able to drive his own line, but he’s been trying to let the game come to him rather than impose his will lately.

David Perron and Brayden Schenn are nice pieces, but hardly the sort of forwards who can seize control at a moment’s notice. They’re also wildly unreliable from game to game. 34-year-old Alexander Steen has seen Father Time finally catch up. Free-agent acquisitions Tyler Bozak and Patrick Maroon haven’t moved the needle even a tiny bit — or at least not in the right direction.

Among the youth, Ivan Barbashev appears to have a limited offensive ceiling (33 points in 110 career games), whereas Robert Thomas (9 points in 24 games) has the tools but doesn’t seem physically ready to dominate. Robby Fabbri (4 points in 15 games), who has flashed great potential, has been ravaged by injuries over his short career. He recently suffered a separated shoulder and will be re-evaluated over the holidays.

This amounts to a top-heavy offense without the bona fide stars to mitigate its lack of balance.

While the blue line isn’t to blame, it hasn’t offered a solution either. The most significant eyesore is Jay Bouwmeester. Simply put, the 35-year-old is no longer effective on either end of the ice. He has just three points in 25 games and has posted some of the worst underlying numbers on the Blues: 43.2 CF%, 43.2 SCF%, 29.4 GF%. It’s difficult to win games when this boat anchor is weighing your team down for roughly 20 minutes a night.

Conversely, 22-year-old Vince Dunn is acquitting himself well in his second pro campaign. He moves the puck crisply and intelligently and is a plus player on a dismal team. Though he isn’t a monster in possession, he minimizes scoring chances against with his mobility and active stick.

As the two primary cogs on the back end, Pietrangelo and Parayko are solid right-handed defensemen who skate well to keep tight gaps in the neutral zone and support the offense. However, calling them game-breakers is a massive stretch. They play within the flow of the game as opposed to controlling it. That’s perfectly acceptable in a vacuum, but on a squad that requires a galvanizing presence who can shift the momentum, they don’t quite fit the bill.

That captures the essence of the Blues’ troubles.

Beyond O’Reilly and Schwartz, no one on the roster seems particularly eager to push back against the tide. They look comfortable. They merely play their game instead of digging their heels in and getting their noses dirty to effect change.

If the Blues hope to pull back into the playoff race, they’ll need all hands on deck. With this lineup, even that might not cut it.