Blues at Stars Round Two Game Six Preview: Do or Die

Game six of the second round - really, just game sixes in general, are the Blues’ Kryptonite when they’re down in a series. It’s tough to win that one extra game that’ll get you a chance for a game seven, but for the Blues, it feels tougher sometimes.

Perhaps it’s because that game six is usually proceeded by a few opportunities to put a series away, which doesn’t happen. The Blues had a perfect chance in game four against Dallas to send the series back to St. Louis with a commanding 3-1 series lead, and they did not. No one expected this series to end in fewer than six games, but that’s still not any sort of excuse for how they played in game four.

Heading into game five, the team said a lot of variations on “we know what we need to fix,” and they didn’t. They looked atrocious, allowing multiple breakaways and defensive lapses. They wouldn’t get anywhere near the front of the crease, which is unfortunate because Ben Bishop, as excellent as he was, was still giving up rebounds and could’ve benefited from being screened on at least one of the 39 (!) shots that the Blues threw at him.

It doesn’t do much good peppering the goalie like that when he can see everything clear as a bell.

The Blues mistook aggression for skill and fell into the “we’re frustrated that we can’t score so we’ll hit everything” days of the captaincy of David Backes, which resulted in multiple game six exits during his tenure.

The Blues, if the cut that out, can win game six. They allowed the Stars residency in their own heads, but they built the condos and invited them in themselves. Fifteen giveaways and a power play that goes 0-for-4 are the two biggest reasons why the Blues find themselves in a hole today. About the only thing that the Blues fixed going into game five was an atrocious game four FO% of 41%, which is why the Blues had a chance. Deciding to play the last five minutes of the third period won’t cut it this afternoon, though.

Win and bring it home.