St. Louis Sports Blog

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And there you have it. Read the rest of the interview with the Blues forward at InsideSTL.

Sadly, it's become an annual tradition here in St. Louis, it seems: the Blues' Slow Start. Happens every year, right around this time, when we look at the record of our beloved boys in blue and notice they aren't doing so hot. 

Blues fans love TJ Oshie, and to satisfy their hunger for more Tiger Beat-esque facts about the 22-year-old phenom, Kevin Lorenz of InsideSTL caught up with Oshie after practice recently for a proper-sit down interview.

Here's our favorite excerpt; the player's diet:

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​One-time St. Louis Blue Brett Hull was inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame on Monday in Toronto.

Hull spent most of his career with the Blues, from the spring of 1988 to the summer of 1998, before he signed as a free agent with the Dallas Stars. Although he spent the majority of his career with the Blues, Hull contributed to  Stanley Cup championships with the Dallas Stars in 1999 and the Detroit Red Wings in 2002. He retired in 2006 and his number 16 was retired by the Blues in December of that year.

After the jump is the full transcript of Hull's speech, and using some fun Internet technology, here's a word cloud -- an info-graphic that gives more prominence to words that appear more often in a group of text, like a speech -- of Hull's speech, courtesy of Wordle.
 

​-- Well, the Blues still can't score, but at least Lars Eller had himself a nice debut, eh? Eller became the twelfth player in St. Louis Blues' history to score in his debut game, as he put in a game-tying, power play goal in the third period. (Well, I say he put the goal in; technically, the puck just sort of bounced off him, but hey, that's the way hockey works.) So congratulations to Mr. Eller on his first NHL goal. 

Tonight is an exciting night if you're a St. Louis Blues fan. The team's top prospect, Lars Eller, will make his NHL debut at the Scottrade Center against the Calgary Flames. Eller will also become only the sixth player in NHL history of Danish descent. 

Click the image to watch the video over at InsideSTL.

​InsideSTL continues its pretty amusing series of St. Louis Rams' game recaps -- the "Ghetto Rams Recap" -- if you haven't checked it, go here for the funny.



In addition, there's a compelling defense of St. Louis Blues' Power Play Dance (video above.)

The Blues have one week 'til their home opener against the Thrashers of Atlanta, and while Scottrade Center employees are likely busy cleaning up after last night's Kings of Leon show, we wonder what off-the-ice entertainment the Blues are cooking up for this season. Sure the mascot, Louie, is pretty great, but what about on the high-tech side? What are the Blues' video technicians going to put on the jumbo-tron this year that's going to get us talking?

The University of Alaska-Fairbanks hockey team has a polar bear that will haunt your dreams.

​One thing's for sure, no matter how blood-pumping the Blues intro is, it has some tough competition: that of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks' Nanooks hockey team, with its jet-pack-wearing, hockey stick-wielding, stadium roof-smashing polar bear. This video, although more than a year old, is getting passed around the interwebs this week, and for good reason.

Just watch, video after the jump.

Okay, so it wasn't all that surprising, to see the Blues get eliminated last night. You get down three games to none, and you're going to get eliminated. It's just going to happen. I was hoping that they could avoid the sweep, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The Blues were toast. 

Well, it certainly wasn't the series we were expecting. The Blues' series against the Canucks, I mean. Not at all the way is was supposed to go. 

To get your mind off the Blues' impending -- well, not impending, but likely -- elimination from the '09 playoffs, InsideSTL.com imagines a diary of a Blues fan over the years.

An excerpt:

January 25, 1993
The Arena was on fire last night.  The entire place was getting violent, and it got really bad when Cujo and Tim Cheveldae started brawling at center ice.  Cujo ripped him up pretty bad.  There were 13 fights that I counted in the stands between Red Wing and Blues fans... three of them were started by Frank and me.  We got really creative because when everyone started yelling "LET'S GO BLUES!  LET'S GO BLUES!" we all started yelling "RED WINGS SUCK! RED WINGS SUCK!"  The fan in the Bob Probert jersey took exception so we pelted her with our beers.  On our way out of the parking lot, Frank decided to hit one of the Red Wing fans with his Corsica.

Read more over at Inside STL.

SBNation

No messing around against Vancouver.

The Blues will take the ice tonight in Vancouver, trying to even their series at one game apiece, after looking rather lifeless and a little bit overmatched in game one.

What went wrong was fairly obvious: they got outplayed, outworked, and outphysicaled. Not the sort of thing that has happened often to this Blues team, at least not since the calendar clicked over, but as a ridiculously young team with so many players in the postseason for the first time, maybe we shouldn't be overly surprised. 

To get your mind temporarily off last night's loss to the Canucks in Game 1 of the playoffs, and your cursing Roberto Luongo's name for the ridiculous saves he made, I wanted to hand out the regular season hardware.

Mostly, I want to give out the awards before the playoffs have a chance to cloud my vision, For better or for worse, regular season awards are just that, and shouldn't be judged through the lens of what the player did in the postseason. 

Well, not only did the Blues qualify for the playoffs, they actually managed to leapfrog all the way up into sixth place. Didn't see that one coming, did you? 

Photo: flickr.com/photos/inel

An artist's represenation of David Backes' performance Thursday against the Detroit Red Wings.

Now that's more what I'm talking about. The Blues looked overmatched in Chicago. They looked much, much better on Thursday night in Detroit. 

That's exactly what I was afraid of. Last night, the Blues ran into the Chicago Blackhawks, who have been one of the top teams in the league for most of the year. They were an absolute buzzsaw in December, and though they haven't been able to maintain that torrid pace in 2009, the 'Hawks are still tied for third place in the Western Conference, and that's following a down stretch over the last ten games that has seen them go only 4-4-2.

Suffice to say, Chicago is a very, very good team. And tonight, they play Detroit.

Oshie earlier this season.

At the start of the weekend, the Blues were one of the chasers, a team on the outside looking in. Now, we get to see just how well they can play while being chased. After beating the Columbus Blue Jackets twice in less than 24 hours, the Blues are, as of right now, the final playoff team in the Western Conference.

Hang on, let me say that again. The Blues are the final playoff team in the West. It just feels good to say, you know?

Yesterday, I predicted the three things that the Blues had to do in order to beat the Vancouver Canucks last night. I said, in this order: 

Yes, it is absolutely a cliche at this point, but the Blues are playing one of the biggest games of their season tonight. 

Well, at least Tkachuk's wrist isn't broken. 

The Blues came close to pulling it off last night.

flickr.com/photos/hjelle

Chris Mason just kept making save after save, and the Blues went down time after time and took good, solid shots. I kept thinking that eventually, something just had to go in. 

I'll be the first to admit it: I didn't give the Blues any chance of winning against the Sharks Thursday night. San Jose is probably the best team in hockey, in my ever so humble opinion, and I just didn't think that our boys in blue had any real shot. 

Okay, that's it. Yesterday, I go on the record with my own vote of confidence in the Blues. I tell everyone in the world that I really, truly believe this team is close enough to a playoff berth that they simply cannot trade away Keith Tkachuk. I stood up publicly and said that I thought this team was a team on the rise, a team that just might be ready for prime time. 

In game that meant they were playoff-ready this year or not, the St. Louis Blues gave up five goals to the Detroit Red Wings and were unceremoniously shut-out Tuesday night at home, in front of a sold-out crowd at the Scottrade Center.

The game Tuesday night was hyped as a litmus test by the local daily and by us. Unfortunately for Blues fans, it just didn't pan out in the home team's favor.

Tonight, at the Scottrade Center, the Blues may very well decide the fate of Keith Tkachuk. They win, he stays. They lose, he goes. 

I feel terrible. Just awful. I feel like a complete and total heel. 

flickr.com/photos/piscesdreamer

Going into last night's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, plenty of talk was being devoted to the fact that the Blues had only lost one game in regulation in the previous eight contests. Unfortunately, that particular loss was a bad one, coming at the hands of Vancouver, one of those playoff bubble teams that the blues are directly chasing. 

Paul Lukas over at ESPN's Page 2 has an interesting column out today about uniform designs submitted by fans to their favorite teams -- and what happens when those teams seem to use the designs without giving credit.

This story has a very local angle, with lifelong St. Louis Blues fan Darryl Swint submitting to the team in 2003 a design that bears a striking resemblance to the Blues' third jersey that debuted this year. You've likely seen it, the jersey with the Blue Note beneath the Gateway Arch.

Whether or not the Blues intentionally lifted the design from Swint, a graphic artist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is left up to debate, and Lukas gets both sides of the issue.

What do you think? Swint's design he submitted to the team in '03, and the new jersey, are side-by-side after the jump.

Jason Isringhausen

With a scant twelve minutes to go in the third period last night, it looked as if all was well in Bluesland. The Note found themselves up 3-2 over the Vancouver Canucks, thanks to another strong showing by goalie Chris Mason, as well as goals from Steve Wagner, Brad Boyes, and Keith Tkachuk. All they had to do was hold on for a little more than half a period, and victory, as well as two badly-needed points, was theirs. 

Look, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the Blues aren't going to win much of anything until they find some consistent, halfway good goal-tending.