St. Louis Blues head coach had seen enough. Following a disastrous 5-1 loss at home Monday at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings, Berube did not mince his words in calling out the lackadaisical effort from his team's top forwards. Berube did not drop any names, but his message was direct and clear.
Via Lou Korac of Inside the Blues:
“I think we're getting a lot of effort from (the bottom six forwards). Our top guys, they've got to dig in. They're not digging in enough. They're too soft, they're not direct enough. They're not north enough. They're not going to the net enough. They're not checking hard enough.”
The Blues, who reached the second round of the 2022 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs and arguably gave eventual NHL champions Colorado Avalanche the most trouble in that postseason, are now on a five-game losing skid. They barely looked competitive in all those losses, as they have been outscored over that stretch to the tune of a 25-8 score. They also posted just a 47.1 CF% in those five games along with an extremely poor 88.8 PDO, which also suggests that it should get better for St. Louis.
However, Berube is obviously not in the mood to wait much longer for the Blues' top guns to get it together finally. Over their respective last five games, Brayden Schenn, Ryan O'Reilly, Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Bunevich, Robert Thomas, and Vladimir Tarasenko. have given the Blues just a total of six goals.
The Blues will look to stop the bleeding on Thursday in a home game against the New York Islanders.
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