QUESTION: I thought last night’s game in Columbus was one of the Blues worst performances this season. It appeared to me they let the Blue Jackets control them physically and, with the exception of B.J. Crombeen, I thought the team allowed Columbus to take too many liberties with Andy McDonald. It’s just a continuation of this team’s road woes. What is your best explanation of why the Blues play so much better at home than they do on the road?
BERNIE MIKLASZ
The players who tend to be soft are often at their softest on the road. That was obvious in the loss at Columbus. I really don’t know why Chris Stewart and Patrik Berglund went through the formality of putting on the uniform, because they had little desire to compete. I don’t know how Stewart and Berglund can look teammates in the eye – especially guys like Andy McDonald and David Perron – who are out there mixing it up and absorbing hits in tight spaces to make a play. Perron and McDonald were each sidelined for a long time with concussion issues but are willing to put themselves at risk by engaging the opponent. On the other hand we saw Stewart and Berglund on cruise control. Inexcusable. If I wanted to watch a dog show I would have turned on the Westminster Kennel Club championship on the USA Network.
The other issue, of course, is the lack of scoring punch. Even when the Blues play with maximum intensity and energy and control the game’s flow, they don’t capitalize enough. They don’t finish scoring chances and the problem is magnified on the road. The Blues average less than two goals per road game this season, which is near the bottom of the NHL. So even if the goaltending and team defense are lock-down tight, there is virtually no margin for error because of the many missed chances.
JEREMY RUTHERFORD
To me, last night’s loss had more to do with the Blues assuming they were going to roll over Columbus and less to do with it being a road game. The Blues had won back-to-back road games in Ottawa and New Jersey, and not to say that they have figured out life on the road, but they had been getting results. No one wants to consider Columbus a rival, but that team despises the Blues and they came out and played a physical game last night. It should be a wake-up call to the team that this isn’t November anymore ... you’re having some success, but games are going to get much harder now because some teams are playing for postseason position and others have nothing to lose.
DAN O’NEILL
It is hard to figure. Last night’s game in Columbus was probably the team’s worst loss of the season, not in terms of the score but in terms of the situation. Frankly, some of the team’s most important players were some of its least impactful players on Tuesday.
Perhaps some of the explanation is confidence. Success breeds success and the Blues have seen that happen at home. They no doubt feel very confident they can overcome whatever the situation is at home. On the road, they do not play with the same amount of confidence or commitment.
As Ken Hitchcock might say, this is a team that has to learn how to win. With only a few exceptions, the roster is dotted with players who have never won – remember, the Blues have not won a playoff game in six years. It is also a roster that has no stars and a very small margin of error. It doesn’t take much for that balance to tilt the wrong direction, a lackluster performance here, an off night there.
The Blues win by out-working the other team, not by out-scoring it. Obviously, a team playing at home, even a team like Columbus, is going to bring it more than it might on the road. The Blues’ sense of urgency has to go up away from home. When it doesn’t, games like last night happen. And if it doesn’t come around, the team is in for a very rough March.
JEFF GORDON
The Blues don’t score a lot of goals, so their winning/losing margin is small. Even at home, they seldom score an easy victory. To build that dominant home record, the Blues use the emotional push from the crowd and the tactical advantage of the last line change to sustain a small edge.
Tuesday night the long-struggling Blue Jackets came out hitting and got a lift from their amazingly loyal fans. Perhaps the Jackets were trying to impress scouts so they could escape Columbus before the trade dealine. The Blues belatedly answered that physical challenge but suffered a classic road loss.
Look at the margin of defeat and how it went down: allowing a goal with 0.1 seconds left on the clock, losing a Chris Stewart goal by an inch or two, suffering a late “roughing” penalty on T.J. Oshie and losing the game-tying goal at the end on a replay review. Such is life on the road.
KEVIN WHEELER (Host of “Sports Open Line” on KMOX)
Why do the Blues play better at home than on the road? Because that’s how just about every team’s record looks in every sport. Come on, they call it “home field” or “home ice” or “home court” advantage for a reason. Why is Detroit 24-2-1 at home and 15-15-1 on the road? Why is Chicago 19-6-4 at home and 10-15-4 on the road? Why does every team on the planet want home-field advantage in the playoffs?
I think fixating on the home-road thing is a little over the top. I would agree that they need to improve their play on the road, especially with a stretch of 13-of-16 games on the road starting February 23, but I don’t see this as a crisis. We can talk about their ability – or inability – to win on the road at the end of the season when they’ve played all their games. If they go on a good run during that 16-game stretch we would have had this discussion for nothing.
Get the points you need to improve your playoff seeding and then take it one series at a time in the playoffs. No need to over think all of this with 26 games left in the season.
