The Ken Hitchcock era started off on the right foot as the Blues beat the rival Blackhawks 3-0 in St. Louis. For a night, Hitchcock had a remedy for everything that has ailed the Blues throughout the first month of this season. If Blues GM Doug Armstrong wanted to give his team a shot in the arm, then mission accomplished.
Jaroslav Halak has had difficulties stopping pucks before tonight—he had a shutout. The power play was the worst in the league—it was 50% on Tuesday night. The penalty kill has been near the bottom of the league—it was perfect under Hitchcock. Somewhere Davis Payne is wondering where this kind of effort has been over the last few weeks.
You have to love when a coach comes in and says that he’ll fix the power play in his first practice, and then his team goes out and delivers. He promised a 200-foot game and for a night his team showed that it’s a style that can be success for the Blues this season. Then again, every system will look like an improvement when a struggling team pulls it together and pitches a shutout.
“I felt that we really played to our strength today,” Hitchcock said in a postgame press conference. “I thought that even in some areas where we didn’t do it, our guys really tried to play the game the way we need to play to win. I buy in this quick, it’s a real good start.”
Even though Hitchcock insists that he understands the post-lockout NHL, there have been those who have wondered aloud if the veteran coach knows what it takes to win in the current NHL. We won’t know the answer to that for a few months, but the initial returns in St. Louis look pretty good.
