Our players should be ashamed about this game. I like what Murray’s doing here. Holding players responsible.

He forgot to mention some players, though. Dan Hinote for instance. Where the fock has he been? He’s a UFA after this season and he’s playing like he doesn’t even want another contract.

Murray basically is taking the chance that he can motivate the team by calling them out publically. But he’s risking the alienation of almost every important player on the team healthy enough to play.

I bet practice this morning is real warm and fuzzy.

THAT WAS AWESOME. He was great about effort being there but execution not being there. It is great when a coach does this and knock’s his teams dick in the dirt. This is a big point in the season right here. This vid should be played weekly to the players.

When someone sucks, tell ‘em they sucked. Even the ’kids’ are grown-ass adults. And if those kids have gotten to this point without a coach ever telling them that they didn’t play well then they’re all little Hockey Jesus.

Fans and media will cry, but these guys are hockey players. They can take a little criticism from the coach. At the very least, maybe they’ll pull together a little to prove him wrong.

It’s a time-honored coaching technique, mainly because it works. Just ask Scotty Bowman.

Is there anyway to post Muray’s press conferences regularly? I watch the Blues on NHL Center Ice and it always cuts of right after the game ends.

Seriously, Paul Kariya needs to get the sand out of his mommy bits, get his ass back on the ice, and do something to justify his Big Kontrak and turn this thing around.

I whole-heartedly agree with the assessment of his “lower body injury”.

I was able to read some of Murray’s comments earlier today. Unfortunately I can’t get this video to work . . . umm, AT work.

Is it me, or does Murray just NOT do this ENOUGH?! I understand that he wants to accentuate the positives, which is fine and dandy. But really – he needs to do a “bloodletting” AT LEAST once a month. Unless they go a whole month without losing, which at this point might happen shortly after those monkeys at the St. Louis Zoo go flying overhead.

I love it.

It didn’t matter that we lost to the best team in hockey, they didn’t force the Blues to be out of position as often as we were. Maybe it was due to tremendous effort but players (young or old) have to be called out occasionally when they are playing like shit. And with the bastard wings coming up on Tuesday maybe it lights a fire under their ass.

And when people are worrying about a 10 game losing streak or whatever it was before we beat the Wild, I would say this is coming about 5 games to late. However, I don’t want to see this every week either.

I agree this isn’t the worst thing to happen, but…
I find it interesting that they’re (the organ-i-zation, commentators, everyone affiliated) calling out Perron, a 20-year-old in his second NHL season, for only having 2 goals while he leads the team in assists. I’m not saying we shouldn’t expect more out of the guy, but where was this scrutiny of Kariya (a former 50g guy) last year when he had what 6g at the All-Star break? Where was the scrutiny of Brewer failing to clear the puck or throwing it over the glass and feeling 2min of shame? Where is Kariya or Brewer being called out ever? Where is his (Brewer) reduction in min. when healthy? What really sucks about that is if they would reduce Captain Roboto’s minutes he’d be a better player out there for us, but I guess we’ll never know b/c some of these guys will never be scrutinized the way the rest are. I’m actually one who likes this stuff every once in a while, but do it to everyone, hold everyone accountable not just some. I have actually been surprised lately with the criticism of Boyes, Walt, & Jackman recently which is good, but I saw on a replay (missed it live) that Jax left (again) his post in front and a goal resulted. Maybe someone forced him to move with bad positioning, but never leave the slot open, where was calling that out? What about saying Polak’s read to jump in and score the GWG against min was wrong… What? He’s been one of our best and most consistent this year, not to mention one of the fastest players on the team, he should jump when appropriate and then it was. Sure he’s still going to make mistakes, but he’s got the speed to get back & make up for some of those. I remember Brewer making similar mistakes jumping in the play, how many of those ever resulted in goals? I just don’t understand some of the free passes handed out, and what did these guys do to earn them?

According to some folks at “Hockey’s Future,” cub reporter Andy “Jimmy Olsen” Strickland is reporting that AM is benching Perron for tomorrow night’s game in Murder City…

That’s just effin’ brilliant, Green Goblin… this team’s having trouble scoring, so let’s take the best set-up man and playmaker on the current roster and sit him down in a game against a division opponent in order to send some kind of an effin’ “message.”

What “message” are you trying to send, Murray, other than, “I hate talented young players and will ice a whole team of fourth-line grinders if I have my way?”

I really hope the Blues go out and shove it right up Detroit’s ass tomorrow night, and then Tkachuk or someone goes to the press and tells them, “that was for David Perron.”

I’m about thisclose to stating publicly that Andy Murray can go straight to Hell as far as I’m concerned…

B.

Murray’s leaving out a few things.

what about the fact that besides what little he’s played this season, Kariya hasn’t fucking shown up on the ice like he’s fucking expected to MORE than anyone else? and when he was “ready to return” like a month ago and ‘oh! I’m still injured and will be out a lot longer than expected".

how about the fact that we keep losing top line guys to injury and keep calling up grinders just because they give Murray a hard-on. “oh, he likes work ethic”. motherfucker, it’s a different kind of work ethic from top-two line guys to bottom-two line guys. top-two lines are expected to move the puck and put it in the other team’s net. bottom-two lines are expected to knock the opponents off their game and stop them from scoring. grinders may have won games in the NHL BEFORE 2005’s CBA, but now OFFENSE wins games. right now, we can’t fucking afford to bench Perron (our top assister and one of the tops in the team’s +/- ) . 1/3 of the current active roster should never play full-time NHL minutes, and you bitch about inconsistancy? when they ARE consisant for stretches, it’s a matter of luck.

“goalies have to make saves”…can’t be helped when our defense is out of place. wanna know why they’re out of place? YOUR DEFENSIVE STRATEGIES (or maybe Brad shaw is to blame for that, I don’t know. but it needs a shake-up. Blues are 3rd worst in goals-allowed. look at the top teams in lowest goals against and use their strategies. hey, we might actually get more than two shutout this year if you solve that problem.

how about your butt buddy, Brewer?? you give the “C” to a guy that very few people in this fanbase actually root for. a guy who, at age 29, doesn’t know how to use his stick. he constantly gets hooking and slashing penalties and shoots and passes like a little girl. yet, you like to put him on the power play. he has no visible charisma to speak of and he’s expected to lead a team?

….and I’m fizzled out. i may of had more things in my head to bitch about when I started this, but I can’t remember any

I was at the game last night and what it comes down to is (in my opinion) this: that was a tale of two very different teams out there on the ice yesterday. The Bruins were skating with a sense of purpose and confidence that the blues dont seem to conjur up on their best days. When they skated into the zone they imposed their will on the blues, they knew exactly what they were going to do and they executed their game plan on each and every trip into our zone. Essentially, they had a plan. They didnt just bust into the zone and then try to cycle it down into the corner and behind the net for a while, they got in, made 2 passes then it was at the net with a man in front to clean up the rebounds. That sense of confidence and purpose they had, well that comes from practice and from workign within a structured offensive system that each and every player on the team buys into laid out by a coach that has complete control of his club, something the blues havent really figured out for years.

Now its great for Murray to call guys out, all of those players he mentioned were shrinking violets in this game. Should he bench Perron on Tuesday? No, I dont think so, unless he plans on benching Tkachuck and Boyes right along with him, but he most likely will, thats his MO, let the vets to whatever the hell they want and stifle the kids without giving them any direction, any semblence of a system to work within. Right now it’s like we’re on a half and half cycle in terms of our season, two years ago we faltered out of the gate and AM came in to righ the ship slightly, last season we hit the wall in January and faded away, this season, well, theres a cycle here, time to break it. Anyone have Laviolettes number on hand? Give him a call, get him signed up as a scout ala the Hawks with Quenville. Can’t hurt, can it?

What I don’t get is AM’s comment that these players (injury callups) are expected to be NHL-ready.

So, if they are expected to be NHL-ready, why exactly did they start the season in Peoria? A patchwork team of not-quite-ready-primetime-players are going to make mistakes. Young, green, players are going to play hard, try to impress … but make stupid mental mistakes. Which is exactly what AM is saying – failure to execute, not a failure of effort. However, as your pool of experience dries up, its all the more important for the remaining vets and skill players to step it up.

And they are not doing that.

Its perfectly fine to call out players, so long as they understand what is calling out. For the most part, AM is citing specific plays, and on review of game film, I’m sure the players would agree that there were dumb plays (or non-plays) on their part. They are pros, after all. The only ones that I’d be worried about would be the young’ns and they should be tough enough to handle the criticism. I wouldn’t bench DP, though, he’s been our hardest worker out there. I could see benching Walt or one of the “leaders” though. If AM benched Walt, how Walt responded to it would be a great object lesson for the rest of the locker room. Besides, Walt needs his rest, anyway.

First, the Bruins have lost FIVE times total. This team is fucking unbelievable. While I understand that the Blues looked like they had their thumbs far up their asses on several of the goals against last night (I.E Wheeler’s short-handed number), I think it’s a little bit unrealistic to expect a team with injuries like this to play consistently, or to beat the best team in the Eastern conference.

Secondly, we’re not going to win a cup with Legace in net. It’s just not going to happen. This organization has not developed or procured playoff-caliber goaltending for years, and this club isn’t getting anywhere until they do. Blaming this current crew doesn’t seem to be to productive when the lineup has too many holes and question marks.