Genny Screamer
Registered User
Go to a Blues game and just watch him everytime he gets on the ice. He's a one dimensional player and loves to coast and take shifts off. He doesn't show up for big games and only seems to turn on the skill when the team is playing well/already winning. Saying he "sucks" is just an easy way to condense my criticisms, but obviously he does have talent and can skate and shoot the puck - at least when he feels like it. He's basically Phil Kessel except he has Kessel's off ice work ethic on the ice and vice versa.
Also, yes the Kings and Hawks were great teams then, but that doesn't change the fact that the Blues had the same formula every year under Hitchcock where they would overperform in the regular season and then be burned out for the playoffs. They not only lost to better teams but they looked like they didn't belong in the same league - which should not be the case when you finished ahead of those same teams in the standings. Hell the conference finals year was probably the worst. Watching them actually give a **** and play 110% playoff hockey and leave blood/sweat/tears on the ice just to scrape out 2 close game 7 victories only to then be gassed and roll over to get defiled by a Sharks team that in turn embarrassed themselves against Pittsburgh. Could you imagine if somehow the Sharks had choked? The Blues would have lost all 4 games 10-0.
The way the Blues always seem to build their franchise, regardless of ownership / management, always seems to lead to the same trainwreck. Good team but horrible coach, great coach but horrible team. They can never get on the same page. Their best chances to win a cup were in the 80s/early 90s but those windows were squandered by financial woes and later poor GM decisions.
My biggest issue with the Blues is that they should not be as bad as they are. If you took a fantasy all-time Blues roster it would be so stacked and deep it would rival any of the original 6 all-time lineups, the same cannot be said about the other perennial losers - Vancouver and Buffalo - yet both of those teams have come much closer to actually winning a championship.
The way history keeps repeating itself, I do not think the Blues will ever win a Cup unless they can get lucky with another Roman Turek fluke year except without the mental breakdown in the Conference Final.
Buffalo's all-time roster is just as stacked as the Blues. In fact, Buffalo has a much better history than the Blues. Yes, Buffalo has been struggling lately, but they still have talent.