Regardless of what happens out on the ice, every team has a scapegoat. It’s just how things work in the sporting world. For the Blues, that title fell on Vladimir Tarasenko after he was mostly invisible during the series against the San Jose Sharks. Other players performed poorly too, yet the main focus was on Tarasenko because of how important he was all season long. Heat has landed on Kevin Shattenkirk, and though he deserves some criticism, the media has circled around buzzworthy headlines instead of using common sense.
As soon as the playoffs wrapped, the St. Louis media jumped on the most basic of stories. Bashing Tarasenko didn’t reach Phil Kessel in Toronto levels, but it’s as if everyone seemingly forgot all of the things Tarasenko did all season long and throughout a chunk of the playoffs. Tarasenko didn’t help things by electing to avoid the media during the closing interviews, but can you really blame him given some of the topics written by St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalists who don’t normally cover hockey?
The Post-Dispatch put out their overall player grades and some were truly laughable.
Tarasenko earned a B.
Ironically, Tarasenko’s vanishing act against San Jose was so disappointing because of how awesome he was all season long, yet the media has seemingly ignored his accomplishments.
Apparently leading your team with 40 goals doesn’t carry much weight these days. Apparently his slump across the San Jose series negates all of his accomplishments in the regular season and earlier in the playoffs. Across 100 games in 2015-16, Tarasenko scored 49 goals and 40 assists for 89 points. That earned him a grade lower than Upshall, Schwartz, Steen, Stastny, Brouwer, Backes and Fabbri. If you’re trying to stir things up as the media, that’s how you do it.
Shattenkirk earned a D+.
Like Tarasenko, Shattenkirk struggled against the Sharks. Like Tararsenko, the media is circling around analysis which is so shallow that it’s frustrating. The Post handed out Shattenkirk’s grade mostly due to his plus/minus rating, which should instantly negate anything said in the entire article considering how unreliable plus/minus is as a stat.
Shattenkirk was 19th this season in points from a defenseman (44). A total of 26 of those points happened on the powerplay, which is a big reason why the Blues were so successful with the man advantage all season long. In the playoffs, Shattenkirk had his flaws. He still tallied 11 points in the postseason, but no one will argue he could have been better defensively. Still, with Shattenkirk’s future up in the air, it’s no shocker to see the media latch on and try to create up a bigger story than what’s there. The real story is the fact Colton Parayko played so well that the Blues may be able to save cap space and trade Shattenkirk to address another need. Shattenkirk will fetch a monster return that’s much higher than what you’d get from a D+ skater.
Why is all of this a problem?
A lot of fans will take these stories as proven fact. If there’s a minor issue and the media wraps its claws around it, that issue suddenly becomes a major issue. All of you reading this won’t fall into the group who will be duped by the mainstream media. You have searched out additional Blues talk and that puts you into a more serious category of fan who should be able to analyze these stories at a deeper level.
The narrative, especially the one around Tarasenko, is some lowest common denominator stuff for individuals who are looking for a quick hitting story with paper-thin analysis. Criticize his play in the San Jose series all you want, but leave the narratives of big troubles, horrible problems and some other issues out of it as he was the best player for the team all season long.
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