The St. Louis Blues are 0-1-1 to start a 2018-19 season where they entered with enormous expectations. The season is still young (extremely young), but there are already some pressing questions surrounding the team. Allowing 10 goals in two contests will do that. Those questions are about the team’s defense, goaltending and their early attendance.
When you allow 10 goals in two games, there’s a lot of things going wrong across the roster. Many will quickly blame goaltender Jake Allen, who does deserve some of the blame, but so too does the defense who allowed the breakaways and open opportunities in the first place. There’s plenty of blame to go round. Isolating that blame down to one individual player is overlooking what’s really going on, and risks oversimplifying the situation. Would a new goalie really perform better when the defense isn’t coming back? Or when they give the puck away in dangerous areas? Probably not.
Many of the team’s veterans haven’t been too sharp to start the year. Many of the players who are usually very reliable with the puck have been making some questionable decisions. Most of these items can be overlooked if the Blues turn things around quickly, but they’re still worth noting.
Simplified, this wasn’t the start Blues fans expected or wanted.
Then there’s attendance. The Blues have a building with a ton of new renovations and a roster that should be pretty exciting. That hasn’t been enough to bring in the crowds. Saturday night’s home game against the Chicago Blackhawks should have packed the Enterprise Center. Instead, it reportedly brought in only 17,249 fans – well below the 18,400 capacity. The second home game of the season (which was on a weekend, no less) failing to sell out is pretty bad. The fact it didn’t sell out against the team’s biggest rival is worse. You can’t blame the Cardinals this time.
Realistically, casual fans who haven’t followed the summer’s transactions too closely may want the Blues to prove that they’re a new team. After missing the playoffs, the old “Show-Me” slogan appears to be alive and well. Fans want some confirmation this team is different. Through two games, the roster is making some all-too familiar mistakes despite having lots of new faces.
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