Blues At Red Wings Preview: Hey, Remember When The Blues Were Good?

This is not the team that I want to see the Blues try to break a losing streak against. Sure, it'll be a huge confidence boost to beat the Detroit Red Wings, who are currently in sixth place in the Western Conference while the Blues are tied for ninth. The rumors of the Wings' demise were a bit premature, just as apparently the predictions of the Blues being a Stanley Cup favorite were.

They can get that reputation back, though. There's still time to help knock the Wings out of the running, but is tonight the night that it's going to happen? The Blues are fresh off of a 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, and haven't been giving their goalies much help. During this five game losing streak, they've scored more than one goal twice. The offense isn't producing unless it's the power play, but the way that the Blues play when they're frustrated, they're more often than not on the penalty kill.

Few teams seem to frustrate the Blues like the Red Wings. Their 5-3 loss to them on February 1st started the slide. You can pin that on the momentum sucking penalty against David Backes all that you want to, but the game was 12 days ago. That should have lasted for the rest of that game, tops. There're bigger problems for the Blues than the refs sucking. No offensive output, poor team defense, goaltending that just cannot make the big save when it needs to...

Jake Allen will probably be starting tonight. His stats in the AHL are terrible this year (12-13-3-2, with a 2.94 GAA and a .903 GAA). He allowed two goals on eight shots against the Predators in the Blues' 6-1 loss to them last week. The first goal was softer than anything Brian Elliott's allowed during this streak, and that's saying something.

My confidence level isn't high, but if the Blues can please try to limit shots and actually take a few themselves, this streak can be snapped. As it stands, they're digging their own grave this season. I get that it's hard to snap out of streaks like that -- reciprocal determinism is a bitch -- but they have to. The longer this goes on, it won't matter that they're playing Calgary and equally slumping San Jose this weekend.

Let's go Blues. Please. Seriously. Play like you give a shit.