If you’ve been watching the St. Louis Blues regularly this season, you may be under the impression that the team’s defense has taken a big step back in 2014-15 compared to 2013-14. Is it just perception or have the Blues taken their eye off of defense during their offensive outbursts this season?
The answer to the question above lies somewhere in the middle. The Blues have been explosive on offense, averaging 3.13 goals per game in 2014-15 compared to 2.92 last season. On defense, the Blues have slid some compared to last season but maybe not quite as much as you might think. The Blues are allowing 2.37 goals a night which is slightly higher than their 2.29 from 2013-14. In terms of shots allowed, that number has also seen a slight increase from 26.4 to 27.1.
As you can see above, the change on defense between the two seasons is rather insignificant. The two years are probably a lot closer than you might have expected. That point aside, why have the Blues seen the small change?
There are a lot of answers to that question. The most direct reason may be the penalty kill. The Blues had the second-best PK unit in 2013-14 with an average kill percentage of 85.7%. This year that number has slipped to 81.2%. There’s still a lot of time left for the Blues to improve upon their penalty kill, but that drop is partially to blame for the increase in goals allowed.
There’s also some anecdotal evidence worth mentioning. The Blues went through a nasty streak of games in which the team’s defensemen believed weak passes up the middle were the best option to clear the zone. Obviously that didn’t go well. Also, the Blues as a whole played a much more unorganized, sloppy game when Jaden Schwartz was out of the lineup.
Long story short, the questions surrounding the Blues and their slacking defense have been overstated and overblown. You can speculate that the club’s defense may be further exploited come playoff time, but that’s an area we can all examine when it gets closer to the end of the regular season. For now, the Blues’ defense has been performing pretty close to where they were last season.
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