Blues coach Andy Murray showed the players some clips this morning from their 3-1 win over Dallas on Feb. 26 and their 5-3 loss to Florida Saturday night. In both games, Murray said the team got off to a slow start, and the film was used to illustrate the mistakes made early in those games.

“We had a quick meeting before practice and we had some video clips we wanted to show afterwards that just re-enforced our message,” Murray said. “Basically, we’re trying to get our players to play with a level of consistency right from the beginning of the game that allows us to have a better chance to win. The greater part of the second half of the schedule we’ve been doing that . . . recently in the last five games, our game hasn’t been as good as we need it.”

I asked Murray to elaborate and he said: “Early in games, the one thing is, we don’t want to chase the game. We don’t want to compound problems. What we’re trying to do is, one player will make a mistake and other players are compounding it by trying to do too much. In reality, it’s not a situation where we’ve got players doing too little. We’ve got some players right now that are trying to do too much and when they do that, they compound the problem.” 

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The Chris Mason Watch:

Consecutive games: 21

Consecutive starts: 16

The Blues had Sunday off and Mason did not practice with the team this morning. He was on the ice before practice for about 35 minutes working with assistant coach Rick Wamsley. “He worked on a few things on the ice, didn’t take a lot of shots, ” Murray said.

Asked if the Blues are leaning too much on Mason, Murray said: “We play an 82-game schedule in the NHL and last time I checked, Chris has played 40. He’s more than capable of playing the remainder of our games. We hope that his form dictates that we use him that way. I think we’re aware of what the situation is, and other people’s comments on the radio or blogs really doesn’t concern me. He feels great. Our team needs to play better in front of him, and we need to make sure that . . . we spend more time in the offensive zone. Recent games, we haven’t done enough of that.”

Mason had left the rink today by the time the media was allowed in for interviews.

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With Mason absent for the team practice, the goalies today were Blues backup Ben Bishop and Junior B Blues goalie Ryan Morley-Stockton. Murray told his players to “abuse” the two young goalies today by putting plenty of shots on net.

“I think the message there is that guys should be shooting to score,” Blues center Andy McDonald said. “We’ve struggled a little bit offensively, but we want to make sure that we’re shooting to score. Don’t let up because of who’s in goal.”

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The Blues need defenseman Barret Jackman to bounce back against Dallas Tuesday. In his last three gaems, Jackman was -2 agaist Detroit, minus-1 against Tampa Bay and minus-1 against Florida. He’s done an admirable job leading a young and inexperienced defense this season, but Jackman admitted today that he’s got to be better in the last 17 games for the Blues to have a chance to make the playoffs.

“The last few games, I don’t think I’ve been as strong as I’ve been in the past,” Jackman said. “This is the time when we really need everybody, especially myself to step up. We don’t have to do anything spectacular. That’s something we really haven’t done . . . been spectacular . . . we’ve just been steady. Down the stretch, the team is going to rely on us to keep it simple, move the puck to the forwards and play good defensively.”

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Blues President John Davidson said last week that when the team’s young players were brought up in trade discussions, Murray was “bullish” against the idea of trading them. There’s been so much talk about Murray disliking some of the young players that I asked him today about JD’s comments after the trade deadline.

“I don’t think there’s any coach in the league that isn’t a little bit tougher on the young guys,” Murray said. “That’s part of the learning curve. But by the same token, as you guys are aware of, I’ll come down hard on the veterans. I knew it was going to be a challenge right from the beginning of the year with all these young guys in the lineup. That was before (the injuries). I wasn’t under any illusion that it was going to be easy with these young guys. By the same token, we need them.

“We can say they’re young and we can’t expect too much out of them . . . that kind of stuff . . . it’s normal that they’d have a dropoff. Well, what are we not supposed to try and win? We’re trying to get them to play more consistently. I did support them (at the trade deadline) and I’ve supported them all year. I think if you ask those guys, they would say that. To be honest, if you play good, you play more. If you don’t play good, you’re not going to play.”

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I want to send out “Happy 50th Birthday” wishes to someone special today. No not Barbie, who also hit the half-century mark today. This salute goes out to former Blue Perry Turnbull . . . Happy 50th Perry!!!

JR