Jeremy Rutherford: Running a few hours late today . . . let's get chattin'

2keysmatt: So I was checking out stats at yahoo sports and noticed something very interesting about the top scorers in the league. Boyes is tied for 5th overall with 41. However, he has anywhere from 66 to 231 less shots giving him a much higher shooting percentage than the others. Why not have him shoot even more? I'm not expecting him to put up 430 shots like Ovechkin, Boyes is only at 199. But it seems if he was able to get near the shots the other big scorers were getting, he would be over 50 goals already.

Jeremy Rutherford:
Boyes has been among the top shooting percentage guys in the league all season. Perhaps Boyes could take a few more shots, but I don't think the Blues are losing games because he's not shooting more. They need the Paul Kariyas and Keith Tkachuks to score on their chances. To me, Boyes is taking the shots when he needs to. I don't know that he's scoring many more goals if he's shooting more. His shot total may be a little misleading because for a while in the middle of the season he was missing the net.

Josh: So Marek Schwarz has had kind of a rough season. But why, at only age 22, is he being written off as a legit prospect?

Jeremy Rutherford: Schwarz has seen spot duty with the Blues on several occasions and looked shaky. That's to be expected from a 22 year old; however, he's also been inconsistent at the AHL level. Remember, the Blues signed and promoted Chris Beckford-Tseu over Schwarz to St. Louis a month or so ago. Marek has the tools, but hasn't been able to put them together for long stretches.

Adam: Hey Jr,
I remember you saying a few weeks ago that the Blues need to score more even strength goals. I think if Blues need to then they should stop dumping the puck in so much when they are not making a line change. The Blues teammates should take after EJ and actually bring in the puck.

Jeremy Rutherford:
The 5-on-5 numbers aren't as bad as I thought. The Blues are 19th in the NHL with 132 5-on-5 goals this season. Five more goals would put them at 15th in the NHL, which isn't bad for a team that's at the bottom of the league in goals scored. But definitely the Blues are relying too much on dumping the puck in. They have been suspect at best entering the offensive zone and creating offense. That includes defensemen and forwards.

Adam: I was browsing over the stats and Andy McDonald's +/- -18 in 46 games for the Blues. I know this stat can be misleading at times, but -18 is not good.

Jeremy Rutherford: McDonald's numbers are hard to figure out. In 46 games with the Blues, he has 33 points (14 goals, 19 assists). But in that same stretch of 46 games, his plus-minus rating is -18. So he's putting up points, but he's on the ice for a lot of goals as well.

Playing on a better defensive team in Anaheim, McDonald was a -4 in 33 games.

The plus-minus rating can tell the picture with some players and it's misleading with other players. I don't know which side of the fence McDonald falls on. He doesn't seem to make eye-popping blunders that lead to goals against, but the numbers tell a different story.