Blues Blown Lead Against Kings Shows Scope Of Problems

I hate to say it, but when I woke up and saw the score this morning, I wasn't surprised. Disappointed? Sure. Surprised? Not in the least. The Blues have shown us time and time again that they are more than capable of playing solid hockey, but completely incapable of maintaining that level for an entire game. I don't know about you, but I learned how many minutes were in a period of hockey when I was a little kid.

They just stopped playing in the third, which lead to this now-obligatory quote, this time from Ryan Reaves:

"The second something went wrong, we kind of got away from everything," Blues forward Ryan Reaves said. "We kind of started playing like individuals. That's never going to work in this league … once the game started slipping in the third we hit the panic button way too quick. It's just tough. It just looked like we slouched on the bench and we got away from our game right when they tied it up."

No fucking way. Playing like individuals? Getting away from your game? Caving in once one thing didn't go your way? "I would never expect that from this team," said no one ever.

This individualism has to stop. If someone feels bigger than the team, get rid of them. If you can't make them understand that this is a team effort, then they need to be gone. I know people like to say that the kids've bought into their own hype, but good God, that hype was four years ago. If they're still flying high from that, then they're idiots. I would think that more than enough things've happened this season to bring them down to earth, but apparently some people are just dense and can't catch on.

This isn't all because they're missing a full line. Last night showed that they can score and play without Vladimir Tarasenko, Alex Steen, and Andy McDonald. If having those guys out is throwing the team off that much, maybe a teambuilding exercise a little better than seeing a shitty horror movie is in order. Last night's game in itself was a shitty horror movie.

"We took our foot off the gas, and you can't do that against good teams," Backes said. "They took it to us. We made too many mistakes and they put it in the back of our net. We got off our game plan and tried to be too cute in our end when they were putting pressure on us, rather than just getting the puck out and working it down the ice the way we did in the first period.

"And the answer was four unanswered goals in the third and another bad feeling in this locker room."

Oh, a bad feeling? Really? That's what you had?

I'm tired of reading excuses. I'm tired of watching this team shut out coaches after a year. Things aren't going your way? Hitchcock isn't going anywhere. The Blues played so badly last night that the team called up Jake Allen from Peoria -- Doug Armstrong's patience is gone. There's not enough time to have patience and fix this; something needs to be done now.

My great grandmother had a saying: those who cannot hear must feel. Maybe some of these guys need to feel something other than selfishness before Armstrong makes them feel sad about getting traded.