The Blues’ Weight loss plan and other assorted topics
In the Blues’ locker room, a Christmas tree sits in the empty locker stall previously occupied by Doug Weight. How his absence will affect the club was one of the questions posed to Andy Murray after practice Wednesday.
Did Murray address the Blues following the trade of one of the club’s top leaders? “I talked to our leading players and I asked them, “What do you think guys? Do I need to address this with the team?” Murray said, “They said, “No, let us deal with it.’ They came out for practice Saturday and out of respect for Doug, realizing this is part of the business, they went to work.”
On Sunday’s 5-3 loss to Calgary, the club’s fourth consecutive defeat: âI thought our game against Calgary was competitive,” Murray said. ”I thought we played hard, competed, did a lot of good things, but we’re finding ways to lose. We’re turning the puck over, taking untimely penalties, and on the other side of it, not finishing when we’ve got great scoring opportunities. Had some great chances on our power play last night and failed to finish.”
On taking the Blues through a taxing practice Monday, Murray said: “We looked at the fact that we have three days until our next game. We felt that with practice today, it needed to be a work day. Our players are going out this afternoon, visiting hospitals. We’re going to give them (Tuesday) off, a break day, to kind of get the body ready to go. We’ll practice hard on Wednesday. But today was a work day and we worked on a lot of areas that we felt were issues with us in the last few games.”
On getting to know Andy McDonald, Murray said: âI talked to Andy at the end of practice (Monday) and I said, ‘What did you think of practice?’ He said, “Oh, good and tough.’ He’s learned very quickly because if he would have said it was easy, he would have been in trouble.”
Keith Tkachuk did not practice Monday. What’s ailing him? âHe’s an older guy, so we gave him the day off,” Murray said. ”Nothing serious with Walt at all, just could use a break.”
What did you think of Tkachuk’s fight with Calgary’s Dion Phaneuf Sunday? âI thought it showed Keith’s intensity and his willingness to do whatever it takes to help our team win getting into a fight with Dion Phaneuf,” Murray said. ”Phaneuf is a tough customer and obviously he didn’t know that Keith Tkachuk was that tough. It was great. I think Bryce Salvador stepping up when he did at that time. It takes all of those things to win hockey games and show that your team is going to compete on a nightly basis.”
Could Murray move Tkachuk back to the line with Brad Boyes and Paul Kariya to help get him going? Tkachuk has gone 15 games without a goal. âWe don’t make any moves to get guys going,” Murray said. ”That’s their responsibility. We make them to help our team or balance things out. I actually thought Keith played well last night. He had some great chances. If he scores on that breakaway chance, when he got the penalty, a questionable penalty, he had two or three good chances. I don’t know if he gets that many normally playing with those other guys. I think it would be tough to do that. Keith’s got to do his job whoever he plays with.”
If Murray doesn’t put Tkachuk with Kariya and Boyes, how could he juggle the lines to put Tkachuk in a more offensive role? âWe’ve had some injuries,” Murray said. “We played (David) Backes there early and he was injured. Mike johnson was there for a while and he was injured. David Perron has played there. It also depends on the team we’re playing and the assignment. Last night we had Keith playing against the Iginla, Langkow and Huselius unit, so we put Jamal Mayers with them last night. They did a good job.”
The Blues have allowed one line to do a lot of damage against them recently - the top lines in Colorado, Edmonton and Calgary all had big nights. How do you change that trend? âI look at the goals last night, two of them were scored on the power play,” Murray said. ”The difference I think why some of those top lines have put more numbers up is we’ve given up more power play goals than we have for quite a while. Normally you can expect the Iginla line to get a goal in a game. But when they get two on the power play and one on the empty net . . . They should make plays. That’s what they’re supposed to do. They’re good players make good plays. If you make mistakes like we have, usually those are the guys that make you pay. So it’s not a matter of we’ve made mistakes against shutting down the other team’s top line. We’ve made mistakes overall at different times and when it’s those guys, they’re going to make you pay for your mistakes.”
Also on Monday, I talked to Andy Murray and John Davidson about the club’s handling of rookies David Perron and Erik Johnson. I’ll have those comments in Wednesday’s Post-Dispatch.
JR
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Thanks JR, can’t wait to read the story tomorrow.