Why St. Louis Blues lost the Semi-Finals against Los Angeles Kings –NHL Playoffs Special
Nearly ending the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season as the top team in the league, St. Louis Blues were seen to be the frontrunners for this year’s Stanley Cup championship.
Eliminating San Jose Sharks in just five games and going up against Los Angeles Kings seemed like a challenge, but surprisingly, St. Louis Blues did not even get a chance to put up a fight as they were eliminated after losing four straight games.
How did a team that was so determined coming out one of their best seasons in franchise history, go on to be dominated by a team that entered the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Western Conference?
Well, there were a lot of aspects to the St. Louis Blues’ game that just died out when Los Angeles came in the rink, which ultimately resulted in their ousting.
Here are some reasons that caused the downfall of the St. Louis Blues much earlier than expected:
Lack of Penalty Killing and Power Play Goals
St. Louis Blues might not have allowed Los Angeles Kings to score more than one goal throughout the entire semi-final series but going out more than 20 times certainly limited their chances of potting the puck.
Los Angeles is a team which has a perfect balance of shooting power and defence while St. Louis lacks somewhat in the latter department and when players went out in the penalty box every other minute, their chances of scoring just died down completely.
Brian Elliott not up-to-par and Jaroslav Halak Injured
Brian Elliott performed spectacularly in the regular season and against the San Jose Sharks, but Blues need to acknowledge the fact that they needed Jaroslav Halak in round-two against the Kings.
Unfortunately, Halak was injured and ruled out for the whole series and Elliott just did not manage to rise to the occasion. Elliott had a disappointing 3.29 goals-against average and .854 save percentage by the end of the series.
Always failing to take the lead
Throughout the series, Blues failed to score first and maintain an actual lead. Los Angeles would either take the match coming into the rink or rally back in the final minutes to take the contest and the win.
Game 1 was the only matchup in which St. Louis scored the first goal, which was by David Backes, but they never saw such a contest after that.
Lack of Leadership
Overall what killed the Blues was the lack of leadership as there was practically no player that took charge of his squad and performed consistently every night. There was no Shane Doan or Dustin Brown to lead the team which ultimately had the players playing
their own game each night and no synchronisation at all.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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