Brewer Adjusting To Reduced Minutes
This just in…the Blues aren’t concerned about their power play.
But they are willing to make a few subtle changes after starting off the year 2 for 18 with the man advantage.
Brad Boyes has joined Andy McDonald and Patrik Berglund on one unit replacing T.J. Oshie who is now skating with David Backes and David Perron.
Part of the reasoning is to get Boyes right hand shot on the ice with two left shots in Berglund and McDonald. Davis Payne hopes this will open up more shot opportunities with players in their comfortable positions. It will also decrease some of the congestion we’ve seen.
All in all the PP has been good except for the result. They’ve had good puck control and have had no problem getting good entries and getting setup into their PP formation. Alex Steen had a heyday against Anaheim teeing up at will.
As of Tuesday Colaiacovo and Steen will stay together playing with the Boyes unit while Erik Johnson and Alex Pietrangelo join the Oshie line. Expect Johnson to man the right side with Pietrangelo playing the opposite.
Johnson playing “Killer” defense…
Speaking of Johnson, I hope people are paying attention to the all around game this guy has produced thus far. He led all Blues D-men in PK minutes against Philadelphia and was extremely impressive killing a 5-on-3 Flyer PP. He’s been strong in both ends of the ice. If you ask Johnson what position he plays he’ll tell you “I’m a two-way defenseman” and right now he’s playing like one. This guy seems to get points in bunches and it’s only of matter of time before he busts out offensively. He’s led all Blues D-men in minutes played both games so far.
Eric Brewer is used to eating big minutes for this hockey club but it appears those days are now few and far between. The Blues Captain played barely over 16 minutes Monday afternoon against Anaheim which is the lowest total since January 13th 2006 in a game in which he left early with a dislocated shoulder. You have to go back all the way to January 10th 2001 to find a game where Brewer was healthy and saw less ice time than the 16:01 he was given Monday afternoon. Brewer averaged 21:26 minutes per game last season and 25 plus in 2008-2009.
I asked Brewer how he’s dealing with the reduced playing time and he calmly said “I guess it’s what they want to do”. One thing Brewer won’t do is make an issue out of this. Reduced haven’t seemed to affect his overall game as Brewer has been strong in the opening two games
I'm hearing some early whispers about a trade involving Blues center Patrik Berglund.
It was nice to see B.J. Crombeen get on the board last Monday with a shorthanded goal. This guy can snap it when he has time and certainly helps his cause when he hits the net. This is a contract year for Crombeen who’s an important player on this team. Can he get to 30-35 points this season? If so he’ll be in position to get a nice raise.
Speaking of contract year, Ryan Reaves is an interesting player to watch. He’s not a heavyweight by any stretch but he’ll go anybody. He had 15 scraps last season playing in Peoria. He’s obviously got to be smart and keep his jersey tied down. He likes to have his tie down strap cut short to eliminate the opposition from pulling too much of his jersey. Usually a tie down strap has two snaps and some Velcro but he has on of the snaps cut off which is legal.
Peoria goaltender Ben Bishop has played all three games for the Rivermen this season in the AHL. The report I’ve been given is that he’s played one average period while the other eight were very strong.
Phillip Mcrae has two goals and two assists in the first 3 games.
Word is Blues interim CEO Mike McCarthy sent out company e-mails to several members of the Blues staff praising them for the job they did on opening night. From the concessions to the game staff McCarthy took time to acknowledge the work being done. This can go a long way when it comes to the overall morale of the workplace. People feel good when their boss recognizes hard work.
Blues forward Vladimir Sobotka will play Saturday at the earliest as he will travel to Nashville today to re-join his teammates. He traveled to Boston yesterday to have his surgically repaired shoulder examined. He will need a practice or two to get some contact in before he jumps right in the lineup.
Ty Conklin will get a game in on this three game trip.
Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins are expected to practice next Friday at the Blues practice facility inside the St. Louis Mills mall. The Blues host Chicago on Friday and the Penguins on Saturday in what sets up a great weekend of hockey in St. Louis.
More to come,
Andy Strickland
strickland.andy@gmail.com
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Andy, if you forget to proof read something before posting it to your site, at least own up to the mistakes that you put out there. Revisionist journalism is amateur. If you need an editor for your new site, I can forward my resume to you.
Best,
Andy flag this comment
Best,
Andy flag this comment
I would say you shouldn't have said anything at all, Blues fans are gonna speculate the hell out of this and the kid already has confidence problems. Although I guess at this point he might be kind of superfluous.
With Crombeen I think he and Sobotka might be competing for a multiple year contract to play on our excellent 3rd line. They seem to be the same type of player.
I mean I would call it somewhat irresponsible to post a message simply stating ..."I'm hearing some early whispers about a trade involving Blues center Patrik Berglund." two games into the season with no mention as to for whom or as to the Blues motivation for doing so.
Your online journalism school called, they want their degree back.......
Andy went to UMSl then Arizona for journalism if I remember right. His brother told me. Stop picking on Andy or deal with me muhahaha.
Trading Berglund...hmmm.... Can't say one way or another. Might be good for both sides, might just be a good idea period. Notheast man, Actually picking up a winger might be a bad idea we've already got a ton of centers. But finding a center wouldn't be horrid either. With the magic of Halak in net play off tested it would be awesome to add the play off magic of Richards to the team as well. He's listed as six-feet but everytime I watch the guy I keep thinking he's six-three or something.
Brewer's ice being limited has been a good thing. He says he doesn't mind. And while I want to hope he means he's a team player that contradicts some of his past actions and supports the big actions of being simply a money player. He's in a catch-22 this season for Blues fans; He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't unless he can somehow how go beyond what he's ever done. By this I mean if he has success this year we can all point to how he played last time he was up for a contract and in the same season after being signed how poor his performance became. But so far so good this year.
I have an idea Andy I'll email it to you.
My scouting notes for the Blues on the Nashville goaltender would be if you're in the corner get a guy in front and the guy in the corner looks like he'll pass and throw it on the ice towards the near pad and you'll score all day on this guy. It almost happened on accident but if the angle was changed he would have put it in for us.
Power play looked better but I think the Blues need to consider putting Johnson and Petro on the first unit. Steen is good and so is Cola but they take just a plit second too long to make decisions and against two of the teams that have pressured the points it has caused some headaches. They need to pull two guys up if teams are going to do this, keep one guy in front of the net don't worry about the back door except if a point man wants to sneak in on the development. But if the other teams put two players up high and one dishes it to the side the other guy comes in for the support you'll create the triangle which is what you look for setting up on the pp. Then it should be a three on two down low.
Jackman made a number of poor decisions. Speaking of poor decisions on entering the zone when a team stands you up just inside the blue line you have to get the puck in deep and with the spped and the other team on their heels you need to throw it in on net. If the netminder stops it you can force him to freeze and get an offensive zone face off. This an aspect the Red Wings utilize to their advantage.
Otherwise early on the forwards got caught cheating against the boards and not catching the high guy sneaking into the high slot area. That can not happen. You need your wingers to back check that even if you take an option away from breaking out. Especially early in a game and on the road.
Again I really liked the effort. I was impressed with how Halak stayed in the game. His third goal was weak but he kept the team in the game despite their early defensive zone lapses.
This team is really good. I would like to see D'Ags on the third line over Crombeen. When Sbotoka comes back I'd like to see those two together.
For a little bit I was thinking to myself that MCDonald was looking like a weak link on this team but then he found a couple more gears and was the best player on the ice for most of the game.
I thought Nashville was able to get away with too much interference especially after dump ins when a forward would go say to his right and then cut left only to have the d-man use his body to slow their forward progress. The first movement after playing the puck you are free game. A second clicks and a change of direction should make interfernce automatic as in many of the other games I have seen this season.
Sad to see a loss but great to see the team battle back and end up dominating the majority of the game. Something very telling is how many penalties the Blues caused Nashville to take. That means their speed is wreaking havoc on the other teams.
Petro had a super strong game. He should begin to take more ice time away from the Brewers and Jackmans in all situations. He thinks the game so well. He sees the play develop before it happens, sees where the other player wants to go and often will fake the expected and open up the unexpected often in simple plays. EJ had a few good rushes one where he drew what should have been a penalty.
I'd really like to see either Jackman or Brewer gone and Cole up. I think he plays a solid defensive game and can add offense. We're almost there though guys.
Berglund had a real good game also.
I don't think its fair to blame any specific player(s) for the loss. I thought Jackman played just fine, and he's actually had some good outlet passes this year, which I think is a little bit of an underrated part of his game. The only play I can remember that really bothered me was on Hornqvists goal. He was equidistant between the shooter and the net and the way he tried to block was kind of pathetic. I don't know if he was out of position or not but this is not soccer and that's not how you block shots in hockey.
Where I disagree is with not putting some of the blame where it belongs. No one was particularly playing good early. It was on more than the players I mentioned's shoulders. Nonetheless those players significantly contributed to a general sense of ineffectiveness throughout the game even when the rest of the team was battling and making it a game.
I do think Jackman is more than capable of making good plays with the puck and good passes. Problem is sometimes he has terrible decision making lapses. The same with Brewer.
But I will put a lot of the loss on Brewer. There's no excuse for shooting the puck over the glass on a penalty kill. It seems anytime he's pressured while playing the puck he mentally buckles. Again it wasn't entirely, not at all entirely his fault, but that one play was a HUGE contributing factor to the loss. Of course during the five on three there was some terrible decision making.
Another aspect of Brewer's game I have considerable distaste for is behind the net and in the corners. He loses to many of these battles and against significantly smaller players. There's no excuse for his inability to lay a real body check on these players. He's acceleration is so poor you see him do what I'll call grope checks trying to catch the player and push him against the boards. He rarely, very rarely lays into the player throwing his body at the player. Which has to do with positioning and again his lack of acceleration. Also he looks off balance too much of the time.
I am excited for this season and especially next season. I think when you remove the Jackmans and Brewers and add the Coles, Kristoffer Berglunds, Junlands, Nikkitas will be even more dangerous. Also I can't wait for Tarasenko. Last night showed how we lack three scoring lines. Hopefully that will change with the addition of Sobotka. I'd like to see the third line comprised of Sobotka, Steen and D'Ags. Then your fourth line truly becomes a checking/shut down line and you can safely roll out four lines. flag this comment