Eulogy: Remembering the 2011-2012 St. Louis Blues

Dear cruel, cruel hockey world: The Blues are dead. The body isn't quite cold yet, but it's on its way to the morgue. Rigor mortis has set in.

We know some of you out there were drooling about the chance to vilify and lambast the Blues in a roast on Puck Daddy (though obviously you'd be classy about it -- no dementia or wheelchair jokes when it comes to you first-class citizens). Here's the thing, though: We already know what you're going to say, and we know it's going to suck (we've seen your work).

Nobody knows the Blues better than we do. So right now, we're remembering the 2011-2012 St. Louis Blues, who have now been knocked out of the playoffs.

Just like they have been every single season. Ever.

I don't know if you know this, but the St. Louis Blues have been in the NHL since 1967, and they've never lifted the Stanley Cup. So their second-round loss to the Kings isn't really shocking, insomuchas the rest of the NHL has basically dick-slapped them in the face every playoffs for the last 45 or so years. As we all know, only teams that have won Cups matter in this league -- right, Nashville, Phoenix and Los Angeles?

Blues fans celebrated pretty hard when the team made the playoffs this year. Because, ya know, the Blues have been really bad since like, forever. Or the lockout, take your pick. And since the NHL only started in 1996 (or 2009, if you're from Chicago), the Blues are a fucking awful team, you guys. Let's face it -- in a second-round matchup against the unstoppable juggernaut Los Angeles Kings, there was no way a perennially bottom-feeding team like the Blues could have come back. A truly good team would've bowed out in the first round.

There's been lots of heartbreak for the awful Blues, because even though they made the playoffs for 25 straight years (which pales in comparison to 23 straight wins at home, duh), someone has always managed to kill the Blues, handing them a heartbreaking loss for all those inbred Missouri redneck fans of theirs. Whether it was losing to an eighth-seeded San Jose Sharks team after the Blues won the President's Trophy (something a team like Detroit would never do), or Stevie Y (!!!!1) zinging a puck over Jon Casey's shoulder in septuple-overtime, the Blues always end up embarrassed and out of the postseason tournament. Maybe if the Blues ever had any good players (like the greatest defenseman to ever walk the earth, Nicklas Lidstrom), they would have gone farther. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, the greatest hockey player to ever live, Wayne Gretzky wearing a hideous Blues jersey and turning the puck over in that game.

I'm honestly not sure how the Blues even have fans, considering their lack of Stanley Cup rings. I mean, fuck, why even cheer for a team at all before they're a Cup contender? I've got other great teams to spend my time cheering for. Like the New England Patriots. Or the Yankees.

If you watched the Blues at all this year (and we know you didn't because helloo, they're in NHL flyover country, and if you tried to you probably couldn't see past fatty-boom-batty coach Ken Hitchcock), you'll know that their brand of hockey, if you want to call it that, is super fucking boring. Think Jonathan Toews giving a blank staredown to a wall of white paint drying boring. They have a young defensive corps of non-veterans, so they obviously are no good. And they're probably lying about being in their early 20s anyway -- they're not out partying hard in Wrigleyville, taking their shirts off in limos and giving the ASL-approved universal sign language for "I just got done snorting lines of cocaine with some teenage girls."

It's like the Blues think they have something in their guys like Alex Pietrangelo and David Backes. HA! Yeah right. I know no one outside of St. Louis has ever heard of either of them, but both of those guys are so, so overrated by pretty much everybody everywhere. It's like they think Pietrangelo (51 points, plus-16) should be a Norris candidate, when there are obviously way more deserving players out there, like Lidstrom (34 points, plus-21) and Duncan Keith (40 points, plus-15).

And Backes, well, he's no contender for the Selke, partly because he doesn't get NEARLY the takeaways Pavel Datsyuk gets (Dats out-takeaway'd Backes 97 to 50 for the season), and we all know stealing the puck is the only key to being a good defensive forward - Backes spends his time going around hitting people, as if THAT matters in a forward's defensive game (he led Dats in hits, 226 to 76. That's not a typo). But mostly, Backes doesn't deserve the award because his name isn't Pavel Datsyuk.

So the second-seeded -- but obviously overrated and inferior -- Blues were swept by the Kings. Maybe it's because they tried to get by with Brian Elliott as their goalie -- everybody knows that guy's not good, modern record for goals-against average in a single season be damned. I mean, did you see him in Game 3 against LA? It was almost as bad as watching Jimmy Howard in the playoffs or Corey Crawford on any given night. Ugh, Elliott's so bad, you guys.
And T.J. Oshie? Please. More like T.J. Broshie. Cut your hair, hippie. At least wait until you win a Cup before acting like a drunken party boy.

Good luck getting an owner, Blues -- it's like you're the runt puppy in a cardboard box outside of Wal-Mart, where most of their mouth-breathing St. Louis fans shop. Speaking of that: What a shitty city. So full of crime. If Blues fans were smart, they'd move somewhere else. Who lives in the city where their team is located, anyway?

But yeah, the Blues are scum, and no one would ever want to buy them. They're like the next Phoenix Coyo...wait, they're still playing? Who's going to buy this team? Tom Stillman? Who's that? He doesn't make shitty pizza.

Blues fans should be really upset right now. They sure aren't rooting for a young, up-and-coming team that has stockpiled good young players, and who cares if their other All-Star caliber goalie was hurt for basically the entire playoffs? All the Blues do is play a boring game, trap trap trapping away. Trap trappy trap trap, Jacques Lemaire. That's all she wrote for you, Blues. Swept.

We're assuming some Red Wings or Blackhawks blogger will pen the Puck Daddy obituary for the Blues, and it will be a lot like this -- only shittier, less funny and less original than what we just wrote you. So thanks in advance for taking a stab at it, guys. I know you've had plenty of time to dream up no-cups and golf cart jokes since your team lost in the first round two weeks ago.

So now, as Eminem once said in 8 Mile: I'm Audi. Here, tell these people something they don't know about me.

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This eulogy brought to you by Game Time's Nate the Great, Average Joe, Gallagher and Brad Lee