He wants his middle name back.

Blues at Blue Jackets, airing at 5pm CST on FSMW.

If there wasn’t much to say before yesterday’s win against Columbus, there really isn’t much to say about today’s game. For real.

Our boys are going to attempt to get five wins in a row. I’m at a loss to how they haven’t had five wins in a row as of yet, but I suppose that’s how it goes.

I must say, as much attention as we pay to this team, we seem to be the only ones. Gallagher wrote about this very thing balls early this morning. Basically, we’ve got a team of ninjas. A team of ninjas who are working their asses off to absolutely crush every opponent. Just getting into the playoffs isn’t good enough anymore.

We want the Cup.

Twelve games left in the regular season. A team that just won’t stop, even without recognition. A coach who clearly knows what to do with this team. A fan base that won’t give up. And one forward who is trying to earn back his middle name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ykdjFklu8

I love this team.

LET’S GO BLUES!!!

Photo courtesy of Brittney Stein

Blues at Oilers, airing at 9pm CST on FSMW.

Let’s make this a brief one.

Three of our guys are out with bumps to the noggin. Brad Lee elaborated spectacularly about this today. Summary? Head injuries absolutely blow. Full stop.

The Oilers aren’t so much sucking lately. Remember last season how our boys were pretty well done-zo? Remember THE TRADE? Remember how then there was that whole monstrous tear where Chris Stewart earned his nickname and Berglund earned a contract and Backes earned a captaincy and Pietrangelo should have earned a qualification for Calder? Remember all that? Yeah, that’s pretty much the Oilers.

They’ve already taken a game from the Blues this year, but I think our boys should just go ahead and keep this wickedly awesome streak going. What say you?

LET’S GO BLUES!!!

I chose the title of this post for two reasons.

One, our very dear Chris Stewart kind of left the game last night after quite the bang. Or I guess, the plural bangs onto Brad Stuart’s face would be the more appropriately worded thing to say.

Now look, I’m not always one for unnecessary fighting in the league. However, I fully and completely supported CGDS on this one. Sorry, Brad Stuart, but you can’t go straight at Petro’s head with your shoulder and expect these Blues to just let it slide. Apparently I’m not the only one who was ok with Stew’s actions. 

This is what a team does. They stick up for their guys. Just like Backes did in the game against the Wild when Perron was leveled.

Last night’s game was great until the first intermission. This month the only teams our Blues have lost to are teams ranked higher than them in the Western Conference.

Which leads me to the second reason for the title.

I fully expect our boys to head into the All-Star break with a bang, holding the Pens to fewer goals than our team scores.

With the best home record in the league, it’s just fitting to give the crowd at Scottrade one final hurrah before we’re all stuck in the week and a half long hockey-less trenches.

I’m not looking forward to the hockey-less trenches. I am, though, looking forward to tonight’s game (airing at 7pm CST on FSMW).

Hold the Pens again, take another game from an Eastern Conference team, keep the winning record at home alive.

LET’S GO BLUES!!!

I’ll be honest. I only caught the last bit of the third period of this win over the Habs. Thanks, real life.

Anyway, I have a few thoughts.

First of all, Halak. He, my friends, was just awesome. His showing today following Elliott’s shutout the other day makes it two in a row, seven on the season, and as Panger just said, that ties the Bruins for first in the league.

Going back to Montreal had to have been a bit nerve-wracking for him, and I’m incredibly thrilled Hitchcock gave him the start tonight. As the Blues were skating off the ice, the curtain call that Montreal gave him seriously gave me chills, and miiiiight have caused me to tear up. Maybe.

Last week at one of the games, I was debating with a friend of mine Jaro’s skills. I was (and am) adamant that Halak IS a good goalie. The first few games of the season brought a lot of the naysayers out and even now, if he struggles those same people come right back out, but I think performances like tonight show that the man has skills. I’m glad to see his confidence back up, and it’s showing in his performance on the ice.

On that same note, the Blues’ defensive corps certainly is making things quite a bit easier on our goalies. Nineteen shots. That’s it. Nineteen shots on goal for the entire game. They are lights out lately. Watching Pietrangelo and Shattenkirk on the ice every game makes it hard to believe that they are so very young. They’re playing well together, and showing that though they’re young, they’ve got that veteran mentality that will lead this team so far.

Even then, our forwards are making their presence known. That Backes to Stewart goal was probably one of the most beautiful plays I’ve seen in a while. Reaves coming back from not being in tip top shape and driving hard to the net giving Arnott a goal was pretty sweet too.

This team is thrilling to watch lately. And oh, it feels good to be first in the central again.

Though that final score of 5-3 over the Stars by our Blues doesn’t entirely indicate it, there were quite a few good things about tonight’s win. Let’s list them.

• Our Blues went 2-for-2 on power plays. You read that right. Two-for-2. Awesome.
• Chris GD Stewart had one of those PPGs as well as the empty-netter at the end of the game.
• Perron is super generous with assists that go along with those empty nets.
• Jason Arnott scored again, and he now has four goals in the last five games.
• Rivermen Captain Adam Cracknell got in on the action tonight as a call-up with Oshie sidelined, and scored his own goal.
• And that super-tall Russian we all like so much, Grachev, finally got his first career NHL goal.

Image flickr/Bridget Samuels

Blues at Avalanche, airing at 8pm CST on FSMW.

You might have noticed I’ve been a bit absent over the last few weeks. For that I do apologize. Sometimes, you know, people just need to take a step back from things. However, I’m back and ready to go again, so let’s get going.

What is there to say about this team that hasn’t already been said? You see, my friends, this team has done something to us that I wasn’t expecting. It’s made us start seriously thinking about things that we’ll always “think” about but never really expect.

Stanley Cup Playoffs.

This team right now is a playoff team. They are. I cannot even begin to tell you how exciting that is, but then again, you probably already know.

I don’t know what Hitchcock is saying to these boys, but I hope he keeps doing it. I guess the threat of being eaten is a motivator.

So then tonight’s game. For the first time in I don’t even know how long, we’re not worried about which goalie is in between the pipes. We’re not worried about our scorers scoring. We’re not worried about our defenders defending.

And we’re really not worried about the Avalanche making it too terribly difficult, either, as their blowout win against Boston is very much a thing of the past.

My one concern is that for some reason, this team every once in a while will play down to someone else’s capability level instead of staying at their own. This was blatantly evident on Sunday in Columbus. The Blues have to play THEIR game. Not Colorado’s. Let the Avs take care of that.

One final thing. Memo to Chris Stewart: You remember last season how you came here from Colorado and scored 6 goals in 5 games? Remember that? Where is that guy again? We want to like you, we want to keep you, we want CHRISGODDAMNSTEWART back on our ice. We want to show Colorado AGAIN why our Blues very much got the better end of February’s trade. If that could be made known on the scoreboard tonight, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would appreciate it. We know you can be that guy. You know you can be that guy. Show us that guy again.

If you’re curious about their side of things, my lovely friend Katie has quite a few opinions. Go look.

LET’S GO BLUES!!!!

Well, that win was fun, wasn’t it?

Did anyone else notice how similar it was to the game last week though? Elliott in goal. Blues score three. One Blues player scores two out of those three. I yell “Suck it, Luongo” (yes, even when he wasn’t playing last week).

Similarities are fun.

So now we move on to tonight’s game.

Blues at Wild, airing 7pm CST on FSMW.

Anyone else still snickering at the title of the preview on the Blues site? “Wild will ride hot goaltender….”

Dirty.

Anywho, tonight’s game. If last night was any indication, the lines will be shaken up all over again. The only one that’s been stable has been the Steen-Arnott-Langenbrunner line, and given their production, I’m very ok with that. Our Captain seems to have caught a little bit of motivation as he’s now scored in back to back games. That trend needs to continue regardless of who’s on a line with him.

What I would really like to see, as so many others have already said, is Chris Goddamn Stewart return to the CGDS we fell in love with in February. It’s frustrating to watch a player we KNOW has the skills not use them. Though at this point, that statement applies to more than just Stew.

Coming off last night’s win, it shouldn’t be difficult to put another tally in the W column tonight. Here we go.

LET’S GO BLUES!!!

Image flickr/Bridget Samuels

Hurricanes at Blues, airing at 7pm CST on FSMW.

Ok. Look. We all know how the Blues have been playing. We know just how frustrating it was to stay up way past our bedtimes to watch them absolutely blow it against the Kings.

We’re also aware that apparently the hockey gods just didn’t want us to see much live hockey this month, so we have to savor that sweet, sweet* Scottrade Center air (*Sweetness unconfirmed).

So tonight we look forward to taking on the Hurricanes, who have been playing really well lately. Everything I’ve read gives quite a bit of credit to goalie Cam Ward. Let’s recall just how much I love goalies. I don’t quite have the effort to link to all the Tim Thomas posts individually, but there are a lot of them.

Last year I was impressed with Ward, even though Carolina missed the playoffs by a measly two points. His performance this year has already been more impressive. Kid’s good, man. Kid’s real good.

Goalie love aside, the Blues just absolutely have to be better than they have been. Special teams have to improve, Elliott has to stop shots, our blue liners have to get in the way of Carolina’s forwards, our forwards need to crash the crease and get many, many shots on goal, and for goodness sake, they need to play the full sixty.

The thing that I’m most interested to see tonight, though, is the duel between the Stewart brothers. All the Twitter chirping has left me endlessly amused. It also refreshes my memory of just how intense competition is between siblings.

Let me tell you a tiny non-hockey story. Every year for homecoming in high school, the junior and senior girls competed in a Powder Puff Flag Football game. In my senior year, my sister was a junior, so we were going head-to-head. During one play, I was running the ball down the field and out of NOWHERE my sister tackled me. Layed me out. I’m imagining this will be the same type of competitive spirit the Stewart brothers will find themselves in the midst of.

Sibling rivalry is alive and well, I promise you.

All of that said, I would love to see the Blues take this one (obviously). We all need this: team, coaches, and fan base alike. Get it done, boys.

LET’S GO BLUES!!

Curious about the Hurricanes’ perspective? Head over to Eye on the Storm.