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

Monday night’s Blues game can’t be a barometer for how good the Blues are.

But it sure can reveal how bad they are.

Losing this game — or, if anything, playing with a poor effort — is an inexcusable outcome for a team that believes it’s better than its record.

The Blues’ home opponent is the Los Angeles Kings, the team with the fewest points in hockey. A team that has scored six combined goals in the past five games. A team that’s been on the road since Friday.

This should be one of those “take the knife and jam it” games, a mindset Blues GM Doug Armstrong famously described in the 2014 playoffs.

The 7-8-3 Blues must show their fans hungry hockey, desperate hockey, declarative hockey.

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