It just got VERY real…

This situation just got very real for the St. Louis Blues after another disappointing loss. One player in particular is under fire by the fan base and Jim Montgomery has spoken out on the team struggle so far and what is about to transpire with this group and trying to give some optimism to the fan base. We’re going to break it all down in this episode of Blues Digest. But before we do that, a quick reminder to hit that subscribe button. We’ve noticed that about 67% of you who watch these videos are not subscribed to the channel. So, if you want to stay up to date with everything that’s happening with the St. Louis Blues, go down below, hit that free subscribe button, and you get to stay up to date with everything that’s happening with the team. This is the place to be for all your daily Blues updates. And speaking of Blues updates, let’s get into what is happening today. And what happened last night was another devastating loss for the Blues. and on the shoulders of I don’t want to say one player but a few you know lackluster performances that’s for sure and one player in particular has been catching a lot of flak from the fan base and it’s not this man but we’re going to talk about this man in a few seconds that is Joel Hall of Famer in net but it’s the guy that you can see at the bottom there it’s Logan Mayu with another horrific performance and things just got very real this situation just got very real there there’s a real possibility at this point. And Mark’s going to join us again on tomorrow’s episode, but we were talking a little bit off air about how there’s a real possibility this guy gets sent down to the AHL now at this point. And that is very detrimental to his development and everything we thought that this was going to be out of this trade. This is not looking good right now. And the worst part about is Cam Fowler has been good since becoming a St. Louis is blue and he’s down there at the bottom of this impact score chart for last night’s game as well. And you know, it’s not looking very good. The goalending also not looking very good. You can see Havs fans are having their way with things right now. Logan Mayu is a minus 9 through five and a half or sorry, four and a half games this season. Uh and he’s only playing like 12 minutes a night. And the other thing about last night that Mark, I have to give him a credit for this. He brought to my attention, Logan Mayu played less minutes than the fourth line last night. Him specifically. This is not good. This is a serious problem at this point. And we’re going to get to some stuff that, you know, Jim Montgomery is talking about. But anytime you can make your goalender look like this on the bench after being pulled for his second straight start, uh, you’re not in a good way. And I I think it’s a collective effort at this point, I’m not going to point fingers at Joel Hoffer. I’m also not going to point fingers and say that the Blues are losing only because of Logan Mayu. But it is a problem. It is absolutely a problem. So, they have to sort that out. And I do wonder if they’re looking at the AHL as an option right now. You can take a look at this. This is at least 10 minutes played all pairings for the Blues this season on Money Puck. And if you look at the expected goals, I mean, you have some really good pairings there. Broberg and PO with at least 10 minutes played look really good. And then obviously you have some larger sample sizes. Fowler Praco, we know they’re pretty good. 61% uh which is not anything crazy, but at least they’re in the positive. But when you look at the bottom there, Tucker and Mayu awful 32%. Broberg and May use, you know, a similar sample size also way worse. Awful. This is a problem that they’re going to have to address now. And Montgomery came out and said that, you know, they were going to address this by the time Mayu came back into the lineup. And yes, it was only one game or two games. Um, you know, by the time he came back into the lineup, things would be different. He would be ready to go. And that does not look like this is the case right now. And I do want to get to a couple quotes from Jim Montgomery on, you know, the struggles of the last little while. and he said, “We built something. We improved our intensity. Our habits got better. You’re down by four goals. It’s going to be t a tough task. We got it close.” And that’s kind of what he was looking at from last night’s game. There were some things to build on at the end, but at the end of the day, they weren’t able to come back. You weren’t able to close it out and Utah was. So, that’s not necessarily encouraging in my eyes. We are going to get to something that I think is encouraging from Jim Montgomery in a second, but this is another quote from last night’s game and he said, “Unfortunately, we had opportunities on the power play to tie it up and your top guys aren’t scoring and taking advantage of those opportunities right now. This is not good, right? Uh we weren’t able to do it. They got a power play, extended the lead, and that sealed the game. And in terms of, you know, the morale in the room, you want to be careful at times uh to make sure the morale is okay.” And I’ve been talking about, you know, the confidence level of certain guys, uh, and and obviously Logan Mayu, and that’s bleeding over to Hoofer, I think, at this point, who was pulled for his second straight game last night. And Monty said in terms of that, he said, uh, you know, he’s a really talented young goalender, and we’re going to work this out. Montgomery is just offering a lot of optimism right now that it’s going to be okay. And we talked about it in a video yesterday, Mark and I, that a lot of these advanced analytics, while the results are not there yet, the advanced analytics allow fans these days, uh, to, you know, look at things and be like, okay, they probably will be okay if these numbers stay the same, right? But the results aren’t there. So, it’s frustrating when you look back 40, 50 years ago when you didn’t have these advanced analytics. You couldn’t look at these things and say, “Okay, we’re going to be okay if these, you know, numbers stay the same.” So, the Blues are in an okay spot. Montgomery saying that, you know, they just have to kind of get it together here. And I thought he made a really good point in his press conference yesterday and I want to play you guys the clip because I thought this was a great point and, you know, while there are problems and they have to sort out Logan Mayu and Hope for to me, I mean, he’s looked good at times. It could be a, you know, situation where the game got away from the team and they just didn’t capitalize on their opportunities because you’re going to have those shootouts sometimes, right? Um, I thought he offered some optimism in this clip. So, take a listen. It’s the same thing as last year. We’re going through the exact same thing as last January and we’re going to have to get it changed and we’re going to have to go to work alto together. That’s how you gain consistency is through communication. It’s by players holding players accountable, coaches holding players accountable, players holding coaches accountable. We’re not getting the job done right now with our consistency, with effort and execution, and we have to demand more of each other. When you look back in January, what helped you get out of that? I think a change in attitude of everybody thinking for the team instead of where their role was and where their their own situation might be. Largely the same group. You think that’s just the tough part of recreating it? Uh yeah, I mean it’s every year is different. Every year players start with a different mentality. You don’t know what you know their goals are. Um, everybody’s goal is to get off to a great start, try and get a goal as quick as you can, try and get a win as quick as you can. And when that doesn’t happen, you know, the teams, that’s when you get inconsistent. You’re seeing it all over the league right now, you know, except for maybe two or three teams. And I really like that from Jim Montgomery. You know, he’s acknowledging that if you look around the league, there’s maybe three teams that are performing to their standard or that do look really good. And there’s a bunch of teams that are underperforming. But I think the main thing is continue to do some of the things that you have been doing well. A lot of the advanced numbers are saying certain guys are playing well together. Continue to do those things. Try to find some synergy there, but demand more of each other. We know it’s October, but don’t let this bleed till December, right? Demand more of each other. I love that quote where he’s like, you know, they got to demand more. The players got to demand more out of the coaching staff, the coaching staff out of the players, the players with each other, the coaches of each other, right? They need to nip this in the bud now and get going before this, you know, gets taken to, let’s say, January at this point because I think Blues fans just want consistent winning. We don’t want to, you know, at this point have a rerun of last year, have a rerun of 2019, right? It can get exhausting. Why save all the wins for the second half of the season? Although it is exciting, right? Make no mistake about it. But, you know, demand more of each other now and and get these good habits built up now. Work on that muscle now. I I I really like that quote and I think they’ll be better for it. But don’t, you know, get away from a lot of the good stuff you’ve been doing. There’s only a few issues with this team that is really uh I think affecting the rest of the team and sometimes they look like they’re skating in quicksand. So uh they have to nip that in the bud. Now I think before we wrap up here, just want to get into and these are the lines. You can check these out. Feel free to pause. This is what they have going on right now. I don’t know if that’s going to follow them into the weekend. We’ll see. But comment of the day and the first one is I love this channel, boys. Y’all do a a great job with the in-depth videos and y’all are my go-to resource for Blues News. Keep up the great work. Appreciate that. And we got a double today on comment of the day. We got comments of the day and uh one of them as well is our defense has looked amazing the last two games without Mayu and then you go back to Mayu. Not crazy about that, gents. Hopes it works out though. Uh well, let me tell you, uh Patrick, it did not work out. It definitely did not work out. But thank you everyone for tuning in. The support on the channel has been absolutely unbelievable. We’re going to keep you covered with everything going on with the St. Louis Blues the rest of the season. This is the place to be for all your daily St. Louis Blues updates and we’ll see what they end up doing with the lineup. What happens with Logan Mayu? Let me know in the comments. I don’t know if they’re necessarily losing games 100% because of him, but man, it’s a problem. And the defense did look good without him. And any pairing that has him on it hasn’t looked good. If you’re looking at the advanced analytics, let me know what you think in the comments. And if you haven’t yet, hit that subscribe button so you can stay up to date with everything. St.

Darius Domingues breaks down how this situation just got way more real for the Blues and how Logan Mailloux and Joel Hofer needs to be solved sooner rather than later.

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Blues Digest is a YouTube channel dedicated to covering all the latest news, trades, reports, and rumors about the St. Louis Blues. We provide in-depth coverage of game highlights, player performances, and analysis of team strategies. Our channel features discussions on key players like Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich, and Jordan Binnington, along with insights from Head Coach Jim Montgomery and General Manager Doug Armstrong. Stay tuned for all the exciting updates and engaging content on everything Blues!

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40 comments

  4. The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is the lackluster play of Jordan Kyrou. He loses every 50/50 puck challenge, every time the puck is on the boards he loses it, he NEVER stands around the net, he dumps the puck in instead of finesse puck handling to set up a play. When the pressure is on he folds under the pressure. The Blues tried trading him before July 1 last summer and nobody wanted him. Zack Bolduk has 5 goals and 1 assist. Bolduk has more goals then, Kyrou, Holloway, Schen, Joseph, Toropchenko and Sundquist combined. Let that sink in for a minute. Pathetic!!

  6. Mailloux is only 23 years old. Normally, it takes defenseman about 3-5 years in the NHL before they start playing at a high level. The Blues have a lot more issues than Mailloux. We traded Zak Bolduk a 20 goal scorer in his rookie season while only playing 12.5 minutes per game. Bolduk ended up as our #2 goal scorer last season with minutes played 5 on 5. Whoever made that trade had to be on the same team as the people that decided Pepsi Clear was a genius marketing move. Just saying…..

  7. You can absolutely put the chicago and Utah game on Hofer. You could watch the energy in the team go cold after the 2nd goal against Chicago. We saw it right out of the gate against Utah with Cole's goal. Hofer's body language is very telling. He's noticeably slow to react to pucks, even pucks that dribble in on him. He makes that look rough. Goals 1 and 3 against Utah were terrible. I wouldnt hold 2 against him as it was a knuckling slap shot from 15ft away. Holloway lost his man on that one

  8. Montreal Fan here, send Mailloux to the AHL and find out very quickly he is not the problem. After watching replays I find to many players out of position and goalies just not playing well.

  10. I laugh my ass off when i see how many people in these comments that know nothing about hockey mallioux will take time to grow more than 11 games and like him are not he looked way better last night if you have to hate how about thomas 9 giveaways on the night and yeah buchnevich finally got a goal Holloway did nothing it's the veterans that need a foot in there arse

  12. It’s a combo of Hofer, lack luster start to the game as has been their start in all home games in the first period, some guys who usually score are not, and right now Kessel is better than Mailloux.

  16. 2 bad mistakes by Army 1 letting Colton Ellis walk for nothing the dudes a legit goalie. Trading Bolduc for this stiff Canadians have to be laughing for this fleece job

  17. Also, how did Carbonneau not make this crap team? Can we quit fucking around and bring him up so we can score some goals and at least make the games exciting?

  23. Mallioux and hofer needs to go down to the farm team
    bring up some of the young guys and bench some of the floaters, cannot fire monty after signing him to a five year contract ,is there a big trade coming?

  24. Logan is not the problem. Hofer looked awful, Logan was playing fine and honestly look at how the whole team manages the puck. The powerplay looks terrible, how many did we have again? We only scored 1 goal on like 10 power plays. Sunny sparked the offense, I'm happy he is back and the 2 helpers last night helps him and the team morale. If you take away the first period we win the game, plain and simple.

  28. He's not the only problem turn overs odd man rushes ,guys left wide open in the slot,the total lack of desperation.
    Gentlemen HARD WORK BEATS TALENT, WHEN TALENT DOESNT WORK HARD.
    BOTTOM LINE MORE HARD WORK BY OUR TALENT.

  29. both Hof and Binner have been absolute Swiss cheese this year so far. Not hating, they were a stellar tandem late last season but it seems like Binner can’t win unless it’s a gold medal game

  30. Kyrou, Thomas, and Buch are the most irresponsible top line players in the league. Constant turnovers, passing to nobody, putting themselves offsides, etc. I don’t even understand what I’m watching. Hopefully they get some chemistry going again.

  31. Hofer looked very slow to react on some shots this game. Not sure if its a vision thing or what but he has to be better or he's gonna get mailloux benched

  34. Question, how many goals was he on the ice the last two Hofer starts? At least 5 very soft goals in Hofer last two starts. Mailloux isn't there yet and he has a ways to go to get up to where he needs to be. It's going to take time, it's just the way it is. We have a lot more not going right than just Mailloux.

  37. I think goaltending is about 90% of the problem. Hofer especially has let in some very soft goals. Send a message by sitting a top player either buch or Kryou. If Torpo isnt back in the week why not LTIR and call someone up.

  38. I see it from a different perspective, with a lot of years of youth hockey experience as a goalie. I watched those so-called highlights or lowlights myself. Logan Mailloux was on the ice for only one goal against. Four went in during the first period, but the one he was out there for wasn’t on HOF. It was the clean goal Utah scored because of poor positioning by the rest of the Blues skaters.

    HOF was off his game from the start. He gave up three goals on six shots. The first and third goals were soft, both going through the five-hole because of poor stick placement and weak technique. That’s goaltending 101, keep the stick flat and seal the ice.

    The second goal, the one with Mailloux on the ice, was a total defensive breakdown. Mailloux was covering his man in the low slot, doing his job, but no one picked up the open man in the high slot who scored. Three Blues players were out of position while another left the zone early anticipating a smooth breakout that never happened. Utah made a crisp pass to the high slot and buried it. That was a good hockey play by Utah and a team mistake by the Blues, not on Mailloux.

    It’s been mentioned that Mailloux is a minus nine through four and a half games. I don’t disagree with the numbers, but they don’t tell the full story. Far too many players are contributing to his struggles. The defensive structure has been loose, the communication poor, and the leadership lacking. The team may actually be failing Mailloux more than he’s failing them.

    Yes, he’s young and still learning, but the veterans are supposed to lead, talk, and help him adjust. That didn’t happen. The breakdowns came from players who should have known better. The defensive zone coverage fell apart, backchecking was lazy, and the slot was wide open shift after shift. Some of our defensemen are still looking for their jock straps after a few of the moves Utah pulled on them.

    If we’re being honest, the entire defensive structure failed. The problem isn’t youth or inexperience, it’s leadership and accountability. Until that gets fixed, it won’t matter who’s wearing which number on the back end.

  39. Why wouldn't you point fingers at Joel Hofer? He's sucked the last two games. Not sure why they threw LM back in the lineup after only two games off. Should have let him sit for longer than that.

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