Closing the Books on the 2010-2011 St. Louis Blues
Another hockey season over. Wasn't it just yesterday we were all at draft parties, munching on complimentary food and drinking complimentary sodas? Listening to the explinations of the GM and team president and thinking "hey, yeah, you know what, this year might just work?" Where does the time go?
Yes, the Blues have regressed from last season's regression. Eleventh place and four games over .500 for 85 points isn't terrible, but it's certainly not good, either. After a promising start, things started to unravel for the Blues on and off of the ice. Some highlights:
- The Blues going 9-1-2 for their best 12 game start in team history. Way to get those hopes up, boys.
- The defensive injury bug beginning with Sidney Crosby attempting a hand-ectomy on Roman Polak. Every defenseman would wind up missing at least one game, meaning that the Blues were basically playing with the Rivermen's defense for a sizable bit of the season.
- Joe Thornton concussing David Perron, leaving the forward on IR for the whole season.
- TJ Oshie landing awkwardly on, and breaking his ankle during an 8-1 rout by the Columbus Blue Jackets. Special mention goes to Oshie for busting his ass to get back.
- Andy McDonald getting concussed on a freak play in Edmonton, both leading to the Oilers' game winning goal and the Blues being without a top line for about three months.
- This .gif of Carlo Colaiacovo:
- Erik Johnson's last goal as a Blue... into his own net.
- Speaking of EJ, how about that trade with Colorado?
- Chris GODDAM Stewart's fifteen goals and eight assists in the 25 games since that trade.
- #whereisoshie
- The 10-3 drubbing of Detroit, proving that the team can still play despite wasting half of their season figuring out how to recover from injury.
- Technoviking rebounding nicely.
- David Backes breaking the 30 goal mark and being an insane +30 on the year.
- Hopefully ending the season tonight with some sort of a win on home ice.
As you can see, it's been an interesting year for the Blues with lots of positives, some not so hotness, and some pretty nasty things outside of their control. Here's hoping that the team doesn't manage to lose so many man-games to injury next year. When they're healthy, these kids can make the playoffs. As we've seen the past two seasons, though, when they're hurt, they're not going anywhere.
Eh, September'll be here soon enough.
