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The Blues have one redeeming feature this season: faceoffs

Sure, the defense needs to be better, but at least something’s going right.

By hildymac
NHL: St. Louis Blues at Minnesota Wild Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

This has not been the best start to the season for the Blues. They’ve won one game out of five and are lucky to have four points. They’ve been awful on defense and they’ve made squandering one goal leads into an art form.

But there is good news!

The Blues are actually dominating in the faceoff circle so far this season. Witness (from PuckBase.com):

Ryan O’Reilly’s face-off percentage of 67.3% is good for second in the NHL behind Travis Zajac’s 67.9%, but is even more impressive when you look at the fact that O’Reilly’s taken over twice as many face-offs (113 to 53). That is an absurd face-off win percentage.

So yes, the Blues are having issues, but face-off wins drive possession. Possession drives scoring chances, and with the exception of the first game against the Jets, the Blues haven’t had abnormal issues scoring.

Fix the defense (no, really, please fix the defense) and there’s life in the old girl yet.