from Benjamin Hochman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,

1. I’m sorry, but I disregard how fatigued or road-weary the Blues were as they entered their past two games. The performances in them were inexcusable.

There are four divisions in the National Hockey League — the Blues got last-place teams back-to-back. On Friday, St. Louis played in Columbus against team that lost 7-3 the night before. Well, that beleaguered Blue Jackets team jumped to a lead against the Blues less than two minutes in. By the third period, Columbus led 3-1 and then 4-1, finally earning the victory by a 5-2 score. And the next night at Chicago, the Blackhawks honestly could’ve had five goals in the first period. They did score two and picked apart their rival in the 3-1 win.

You can’t play two last-place teams and not get a point out of either game.

2. Imagine last year if I told you the Blues’ miserable power play of 2022-23 would still have more than double the percentage points of this year’s Blues power play? Sure enough, here we are. The 2022-23 Blues scored on 19.3% of power plays, while this year the Blues are at 8.8%, worst in the Western Conference.

This is outside the box, but what if the Blues reserved one spot on the power play for an X-factor player who has shown the most effort in recent games? Even if it’s a fourth-liner, reward the guy by putting him on the power play. You’d only be demoting one guy off your top power play — and maybe that hustle player could provide a spark. What else do you have to lose? And what’s the worst that happens — you still don’t score?

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