NHL playoff casualties: Dissecting the bloated corpse of the St. Louis Blues

Blues goaltender Ryan Miller hoping that if he ignores the
 celebrating Blackhawks players, they will just go away.

Have you ever woken up in the morning with a hangover and a song you heard the night before stuck in your head? 

St. Louis Blues players can probably relate.

After leading the Chicago Blackhawks 2-0 in their best of seven series, the Blues lost four games in a row, and exited the playoffs early, again.

This summer, whether Blues players find themselves at fancy restaurants, pristine golf courses, or exotic beaches, they will surely be haunted by the Blackhawks' earworm of a goal song.

So how does a team that always manages to finish high in the regular season standings constantly bottom out in the playoffs?

 I believe it is because the Blues are a fatally flawed team.

The Blues do a lot of things very well: they play a physical style of hockey, play a disciplined system, and receive consistent scoring from their depth players. This has led them to some very strong regular season finishes.

This year the Blues seemed especially strong, getting elite scoring from Alexander Steen and acquired a top goalie in Ryan Miller. It seemed (I actually believed), the Blues could do some damage in the postseason.

The greatest trick the Blues ever pulled was convincing 

the world they existed (as contenders).

Instead, the Blues continued their remarkably consistent streak of playoff failures.

For the past three seasons the Blues faced off against a contender, losing 2-4 to Chicago this year, 2-4 against Los Angeles last year, and 0-4 against Los Angeles the year before. In each of those series, the Blues lost the last four games in a row to get eliminated. In the last four games of each series, the Blues scored an average of only 1.5 goals per game.

When scoring gets tough, the Blues have the potency of a garter snake.

The Blues simply don't have the high-end scoring talent it takes to be successful. This year, Alexander Steen led the Blues in scoring with 62 points, ranking him at 35th overall in the league. While Steen scored a career high 33 goals this season, the vast majority of these goals were scored in the first half, and his previous season high was 24 goals. This casts doubt on his abilities as a consistent goal scorer.

No Blues player has scored more than Steen's 62 points since Brad Boyes in 2008-2009. The Blackhawks have three players who scored more this year: Patrick Sharp at 78, Patrick Kane at 69, and Jonathan Toews at 68.

What do the Blues do now?

The Blues are only a few pieces away from being a legitimate contender. Unfortunately, those pieces are probably the hardest to get.

The Blues need scoring talent, but so do a lot of other teams in the NHL, including the Blues' division rival Nashville Predators who just committed themselves to offence with new coach Peter Laviolette. 

There may be scoring forwards available via trade this offseason, such as Jason Spezza from the Ottawa Senators, or Eric Staal from the Carolina Hurricanes, but these players are likely to be expensive to acquire, expensive to retain and come with an element of risk.

The Blues have some potential high-end scorers on the team, including 22-year old Vladimir Tarasenko, and 21-year old Jaden Schwartz. It may be best for the Blues to focus on developing these players and drafting (hard to do when you always finish high in the regular season standings).

In the meantime, signing a quality goaltender may take some pressure off the Blues' scorers. While Miller may not have performed exceptionally well in the playoffs, he is the most talented goalie the Blues have had in recent years, and they should think about resigning him.