The way I see it there are only two things that can keep them from advancing in the playoffs. The first is goaltending and we've beat that one to death. In short, Halak has the skills but serious issues between the ears. Elliott is good but not great. If he were to carry any team through the playoffs, it would be by bringing his A+++ game every minute of every game. Clearly, he hasn't been able to do that yet. Do you now give Jake Allen a shot?

The second is simply the leadership and inconsistencey of this team. For the skill level thay have, they should never lose to sub .500 teams. Yet we see them take shifts, whole periods and sometimes entire games off. Backes is a great player and very weak Captain. Guys like Stewart and Berglund have more talent than 90% of the guys in the NHL but can't bring themselves to play like they want to win every shift of every game. I think Berglund is just too soft and Stewart has headworms. He's the Jaime Garcia of the Blues. They should just hire a full time shrink to follow him around and keep him off the ledge. There are a few others but those are the big name players that just stick out like a sore thumb, when you look at current problems.

Let's hope the next few months is used to work out the kinks in the goaltending and gel these guys into winners. The God-given talent is there. Can they harness it and use it to win is the question.