The bias has less to do with early 1st round exits as much as it's the Blues' inability to beat strong opponents, especially late in the season when teams have their strengths and weaknesses figured out. We could have broken .500 overall against these guys and I'd still say we're likely doomed because it's been 3 years of the Blues rarely rising to the occasion over strong teams. This year it's the central, last year and the year before it was Cali teams and the Hawks. It's the same old song and dance. They get a few big wins in the fall, everyone gets excited, the Blues beat worse teams consistently over the next few months, and will make very few adjustments as they are always seemingly content with their strategy. Then everyone else figures out their teams, they get stronger, and sure enough by February we find ourselves losing to top teams and struggling against basement dwellers. We blame injuries, 1st round matchups, on and on, but at the end of the day the Blues have consistently failed to find whatever it is they need to win a big emotional game with any sort of consistency.

I was pretty optimistic we'd get our mojo together 3 weeks ago as we hit the final stretch, but that 6-3 Minny game is really all she wrote for me. That was a critical game against arguably a Top 3 team and we simply got destroyed. I was willing to look past our struggles against shit teams like the Flyers around that time. I'd let go of our inability to close out against Winnipeg. I thought, man, we almost had the Wild the week before, but that away game in Minnesota said everything we need to know about this team.

Best of all, after being spanked like that, how has the team responded? An OT loss to Detroit, a squeeker OT win against the Pens (who we somehow can play well against for the last 3 years) follow by a complete loss of momentum against a McDavid sweepstakes Blue Jackets and a slow motion train wreck against the Canucks.