The St. Louis Blues have been in a bit of a bad way of late. Despite their shootout win over Columbus last night in which Jackets goalie Steve Mason couldn’t keep his five hole from being scored upon, the Blues have done rather miserably. Without Jaroslav Halk in goal, times have been rough but today, the Blues activated Halak off of injured reserve to try and help things get steadier in goal. Ben Bishop was sent back to the AHL to make room for Halak.
When we last saw Halak in goal, it was Valentine’s Day and the Blues had just beaten Vancouver and spirits were sky high about the Blues potentially making a run at the playoffs. Since then with the duo of Bishop and Ty Conklin the Blues have gone 4-7-0 and fallen back to 13th in the Western Conference, 10 points behind eighth place Los Angeles.
The road for St. Louis to make a run at the playoffs is a tough one. James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail tracks teams in their quest to reach the playoffs. In the Western Conference, you generally need to have a shot of reaching the postseason by getting 96 points. For the Blues to get there, they’ll need to go 14-1-1 in their final 16 games. There’s no room for error for the Blues and they’ve been beset by nothing but errors of late.
If Halak can jump back in the lineup and get the Blues to get that hot to close out the year, the Halak signs that were so popular in Montreal last year for the playoffs will be out in force in St. Louis. Realistically it seems highly unlikely that such a run is in the Blues especially with a schedule that sees them still facing Detroit and Minnesota twice and one final brutal swing on the west coast to face the Kings, Ducks, Sharks, and Coyotes.