Blues coach Mike Yeo mixing things up, but is it grasping at straws?

You’ve heard the phrase “it’s still early!” being tossed around a bit recently whenever folks bring up the Blues’ current season. And it is. Seven games in is extremely early when it comes to a 82 game schedule.

But when you have a team that missed the playoffs by exactly one point last season, there should be an understanding from the front office all of the way down to the seventh defenseman: literally every point counts. It’s not a cliche. You get them where you can get them, and the Blues can’t do that.

The last game’s embarrassing finish was a culmination in leaving points on the table. Only one loss - the Blues 4-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on opening night - has been by more than one goal. Every other loss has been by one. Two of those - the second game against Chicago and the loss Sunday to the Anaheim Ducks - easily should’ve been wins.

The Blues could just as easily be 5-1-0 right now as they are 1-3-2 - they have four points when they could have 10. Frustrating would be blowout losses. This isn’t that - this is having the skill and talent to keep games close, but the inability to be consistent and to play smart hockey. This team is good and the numbers don’t reflect that, and that is honestly worse.

So sure, bench Jay Bouwmeester, even though he hasn’t been the defenseman at the heart of the problems (he’s not even one of the three biggest culprits). Shuffle the lines to find chemistry, even though the losses aren’t because the team isn’t scoring consistently.

Mike Yeo’s going through the motions of a coach who knows what’s written on the wall: fix this shit or go. Better coaches - Stanley Cup winning coaches - have had shorter leashes with worse teams. How much of this start is on him is debatable, but he’s going to have to be the one reshuffling deck chairs on the Titanic for the time being, because the Blues brought in a couple new lifeboats this summer.

If it doesn’t change soon, the only captain going down with their ship is going to be Alex Pietrangelo.