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I am slowly but surely coming to realize that this St. Louis Blues team is average. Not even Tarasenko and his miraculous goal scoring can change that right now. Case in point? This goal differential heat map.
This data was pulled from War on Ice today (1/8/2016). The teams are along the left hand side and across the top are the goal differentials for 5v5 ice time that have occurred so far this season. You can sort the team in three different ways: Goals For, Goals Against, Goal Differential. Regardless of how you sort the teams, the Blues always end up in the middle of the pack.
The Blues haven't been outscored, or outscored an opponent, in 5v5 by more than 3 goals, and their games seem to be distributed evenly between -2 and +2 goals. Unfortunately, the goal differential with the most games so far this season for the Blues is zero. Like I said...average.
The team with the highest goal differential is the Washington Capitals with +26 goals during 5v5 play. Most of their games (32%) fall under the +2 goal differential. And it should be no surprise that Buffalo is at the bottom with a whopping -21 goal differential during five on five.