Blues Starting Jake Allen Tonight Against Coyotes

Sometimes teams need a swift kick in the ass, and one way for a coach to do so is to yank a goalie. That usually reminds teams "hey! Our terrible play impacts someone!" and they'll pick it up a notch. That hasn't worked during games for the Blues very much, so General Manager Doug Armstrong apparently figured it'd work when you call a goalie up from the AHL.

Not a news flash here but Jake Allen will start in goal for #stlblues tomorrow against #coyotes

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 7, 2013

I don't think that this is a "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" maneuver by Army and Hitchcock. It's pretty obvious with Allen's record that his shit does, in fact, stick. While this might light a fire under the team's ass, it doesn't fix the atrocious defensive play by the team as a whole, nor does it change their compete level. They'll have to take what they had for the first two periods at Los Angeles and actually continue it for the entire game tonight. Does Allen starting make any difference as far as that's concerned?

Armstrong told the Post-Dispatch's Jeremy Rutherford this yesterday:

"Quite honestly, I thought the first two periods (Tuesday) might have been the best hockey we’ve played all year as far as the players sacrificing for each other," he added. "L.A. was 8-2 (in its last 10 games), it looks like they have their swagger back and I thought we were there with them for 40 minutes and were in a very good spot to acquire points. We weren’t able to do that, but I thought there was a lot of really positive signs from our group as far as their willingness to compete against the best and play for each other. There were a lot of good things that went to the wayside when the final score was written."

While I don't disagree, will Allen fix it? Here's hoping. No pressure, kid.