Last night, fans turned on the Blues in their home opener.
We heard “booos” over “wooos” for the Blues home opener. In my opinion, completely classless and sad. Who are we? Nashville? As apart of the St. Louis fanbase, we used to take pride in the fact that we are an educated and respectful fanbase. Not only toward our home teams, but to visiting teams as well. Last night that proved to be highly inaccurate, and as a member of the St. Louis sports fanbase, I’m ashamed and embarrassed. There were 6 new Blues players on the ice last night, and their first impression of us as fans, is that we are not behind our goalie or this team. Some first impression we gave them.
Look, does this mean I believe we have to be sensitive like all the “snowflakes” of this country? NO. Does this mean I’m a softy and think everyone deserves a participation trophy? HELL NO. I do however understand that the coaches and management of the teams see the exact same thing the fans do and don’t need our input. I also understand that this Blues team was hyped up like crazy due to our off season acquisitions and understand how disappointing our team looked on the ice. It was game 1. The St. Louis Blues have 81 more to go. If you’re going to start complaining, start with the defense, start with the sloppy passing, and start with how many scoring opportunities we had, and failed to do so.
Alex Pietrangelo
It seems like every time we get blown out, it’s because our defense doesn’t hold the blue line. Look at how many times our guys did the dump and chase vs. skating the puck into the Jets’ zone. For some reason we allow guys to skate in the zone, we don’t put a body on them, we just let them skate to the net. I don’t get that. Winnipeg just casually skates in our zone and rarely dumped the puck in. Let’s complain about that. When we tried to enter their zone, more often than not, we had to dump and chase because they held the blue line.
Vladimir Tarasenko
Why are Maroon, O’Reilly, and Tarasenko on the same line? Where is the speed on that line? Sure they’re all tough and can fight off defenders who body up with them when they have the puck, but that’s about it. None of these guys are going to blaze past people with their speed. None of these guys are going to dump a puck around a defenseman and beat him to the corner for it. Tarasenko gets double teamed every time, and has two medium paced other guys on his line. Maybe the lines should change. I’m not the coach though, but I bet he saw that. Let’s complain about that.
Hellebuyck had 42 saves. 42! How did we only find the net back of the net 1 time? Our offense needs to take more quality shots, just simply getting the puck on goal isn’t going to do the trick. Get guys in front of the net, take quality shots, get deflections and redirections, screen the goalie, and be physical in front of him. Our offense did non of those things. Am I saying we didn’t have any good shots? No. Am I saying their goalie didn’t play extremely well? HELL NO. Because he did. Just saying we didn’t have that amazing chemistry we all expected, with awesome passes, creating awesome scoring chances. Let’s complain about that.
Jake Allen
Allen isn’t an elite goalie by any means. He’s mediocre and streaky. We know this. But he’s a lot better than I am. I’m not going to sit there at a game that I paid to go to and “booo” our goalie, or give him The Bronx cheers, because that doesn’t make me any happier. It actually makes me more upset. Yeo knows Allen has to be better. So does Armstrong. So does Stillman. Allen can win games, and Allen can make some ridiculous saves. But it’s not all on him. It’s on the defense, it’s on the offense, and it’s also on him. It’s on the team. If our defense played better in front him, maybe some of those don’t go in. If our offense scores a few goals, maybe it ends up being a tie game, or better maybe we are up.
Who knows… but I do know that what happened last night towards Allen was classless. Frankly, I’m ashamed. We are better than that. As a city, and as a fanbase. We are better than that.
Don’t give me that, “It’s my right, I paid, blah blah blah. They need to hear what the fans think, blah blah blah.” Because that’s bs. And we know it. They know. They know what this city expects. They know what we’ve been through. You’re just a salty, uneducated, “come and go as I please” sports fan.
As annoying as they may be, let’s get back to some Rick Flair “WOOOS” and get rid of the “booos.” End of rant.
