St. Louis Blues Problems Show In Central Division Embarrassment

The NHL All-Star Game has become somewhat of a divisive fixture for hockey fans of late. Some love the new format, but it’s difficult to like it if you have been a fan of the Central Division teams of late.

The St. Louis Blues have plenty of issues this season and they have been well documented. Despite all that, who would have expected to see those same problems come up when we all tuned in to the NHL All-Star Game.

We tune in to watch the NHL All-Star Game to see our favorite superstars go head-to-head. We watch to see a spectacle and see rivals turn into teammates. It is supposed to be a fun game where we can forget the woes of our own season or even hope for the future.

Neither was the case for St. Louis Blues fans. Unfortunately, we were treated to the same thing we have seen on too many game nights for the Blues (assuming you were rooting for the Central Division that is).

I know the All-Star Game is an exhibition and there have been plenty of years where the effort could be questioned. However, when the Central Division failed to even mount a challenge for the second year in a row, it becomes rather disappointing.

The Central had some of the best players in the league. While they did not have the two marquee names that put on the sweater of the Metropolitan Division, they still had some of the biggest names in there.

Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith were not only teammates with the Blackhawks, but formed an entire line for their team. They are all currently supposedly three of the top 100 players in NHL history.

The division’s team also boasted Tyler Seguin (one of the slickest goal scorers), P.K. Subban (one of the league’s best offensive defensemen) and Ryan Suter. There was also our own Vladimir Tarasenko, Nathan MacKinnon and Patrick Laine (a member of the 2016-17 amazing rookie class).

Those are names that should light up the scoreboard like an airport runway. Instead, they could not do a thing and looked lost or lackluster depending on the shift.

It was quite emblematic of what we see on a nightly basis with the Blues during the recent months. Every other shift was somewhat of a joke.

It was hard to decipher where the Central started and what we are used to seeing from the Blues ended. There was poor goaltending, weak defending and offense that was too careless and not focused.

We were treated to a fantastic Tarasenko goal. That at least got us on our feet.

Other than that, it was all a bunch of garbage. Two years in a row now the Central Division looked disinterested as though they would rather be somewhere else.

In a three-on-three competition, you are going to have breakaways and odd-man rushes. It’s part of the format and is supposed to lead to exciting hockey. That is the plan and it worked fairly well for three of the four divisions.

However, the Central Division had several two-on-none breaks against them. Conversely, they had what felt like no breaking chances of their own.

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How is it that some of the quickest players and best passers could not get a step on the Pacific Division’s players? Why is it that the best break the team had came when Devan Dubnyk unleashed a great stretch pass? How does an entire line of Blackhawks manage one goal and give up a couple?

Like the entire Blues’ season, it just does not compute. The Blues don’t have the excuse of of playing in an exhibition, but that’s about the only difference.

The defending was just awful. There was no effort to help out the goaltenders at all. Nobody (except Subban) looked like they were having any fun. Even Tarasenko, who usually has a Cheshire cat grin, didn’t seem his normal self when he scored.

I understand these guys are all multi-millionaires, but if a bonus doesn’t entice these guys to play with a little spunk, then perhaps they should go back to the conference format. If a team with some heavyweight names like the Central had can’t even try, then the entire event just seems like a joke.

None of this is going to change. TV ratings are the end-all, be-all, so unless this year and last saw any ratings drop, there won’t be any alterations.

Our best hope is sadly that the NHL sucks up to Chicago so much that they won’t want Blackhawks players crashing out so early. That’s not much to root for from our own perspective.

At least we have the second half to look forward to…oh right. Maybe not.