January 12 postgame quotes: St. Louis

Ken Hitchcock, on whether there are bigger picture issues with the Blues:
I thought today we did a lot of good things. I thought our competitiveness from start to finish was ok. We probably, offensively, we didn’t go really until the third period in to the high traffic areas so that’s something that has to get addressed. I thought we got too far away from the net at times but you know, obviously you can’t let that many goals in and we’ve beaten the dead horse on ‘we need better goaltending’ but it seems like right now we’re at a stage where every mistake goes in our net and we’ve got to be careful because we had a lot of good things today but like I said, when we make mistakes it’s in the back of the net and we’re facing off at center ice. I think the one thing that we just have to address from a team play standpoint is we’ve got to get way greasier, way dirtier in to the garbage areas. That’ll help us. We’ve scored quite a few goals of late but when you’re playing against a team like LA who defends as well as they can defend, they made it hard on us and we didn’t get there until the third period.

Hitchcock, on what he can do to help Allen get his game back:
Oh this is really on the athlete. You know, it’s a combination. Like you just, there’s times in your young career where you just said you’ve had enough and then you’ve got to go and turn it around the other way. So he’s in a position where he’s the guy that has to take charge here. He’s got to man up and get better and we’ve got to get better in front of him. If it means that we’ve got to play a game where we’re giving up single digit scoring chances against to win it, we’ve got to do that stuff right now. We’re wasting some decent efforts on getting down too quick and chasing games. We’re playing losing hockey right now. When you’re chasing from behind that early you’re in trouble and we’ve been doing that.

Hitchcock, on whether bad goaltending can demoralize the rest of the team:
I don’t want to get in to that. There’s going to be enough people beating it up right now. We’ve got to be solution-based here after a while. It is what it is, it’s been like that for a little while, we know that, so we’ve got to deal with it and we’ve got to figure out a way that we’re going to help him get better. He’s got to help himself and we’ve got to help him but at the end of the day maybe there’s one game where we’ve got to score six goals to win the hockey game. We’ve got to do that stuff.

Alex Pietrangelo, on the 4-minute penalty kill to start the game:
It’s not easy to start on the penalty kill like that but again, it’s a penalty kill. We’ve got to find a way to step up and kill that and that would have generated some momentum. It went the other way for us so right now it’s the starts we’ve got to figure it out. Before it was the end, now it’s the start.

Pietrangelo, on the goaltending struggles in recent games:
They’re far from the issue. We’re giving up grade-A scoring chances. We’ve got to find a way to limit those, especially when we’re a man down.

Pietrangelo, on whether there are bigger picture issues with the Blues:
This isn’t one guy, two guys. This is a collective effort that we need to better. That’s all it comes down to.

Pietrangelo, on what the Blues need to do to be better:
You have no choice but to bounce back and play better on Saturday so we’ve got 48 hours to take a hard look at ourselves and get ready for the next game.

Paul Stastny, on where things went wrong for the Blues:
I don’t know, I wouldn’t say the first period was too bad, though, you know what I’m saying? I think maybe Snakey wants the second one back and the first one was just, we really put ourselves in a hole. I think it was unfortunate that four-minute high stick, I mean, hits the guy with his high stick that’s just unfortunate but that’s the way it seems to be going right now. We kind of put ourselves in a hole early in the game and then once they scored that third goal I think, I wouldn’t say it deflated us but it just seemed to, that’s a tall tale to ask for us to come back and you try to chip away but it’s too little, too late.

Stastny, on whether the Blues had the “fight” to get back in to the game:
I don’t know. I’ve said before, when we get in trouble we have three out of five guys trying to make plays or four out of five guys and if we don’t have all five guys working for each other whether it’s the forwards back-checking for the D-men then the D-men can’t trust their forwards and they play differently. If we have two forwards forechecking we don’t have the third in the right spot, you know, then all of a sudden you’re playing on your heels and it makes it tough for the D and that’s how it is. We’ve got to stay aggressive and trust ourselves and trust each other to make plays I think offensively and defensively and come out together. I think it happens when we’re down, we tend to kind of fade away from the puck a little bit instead of come back to the puck and you look at an example, their break outs, when they come up they have five guys supporting each other and that’s what we need to do.

Stastny, on what the Blues need to do to be better:
You know you sit on this one tonight and then we know we have two tough games coming up so we’ve got to be ready. I think sometimes it sucks you’re playing in tough buildings but it’s good. I think it’s that challenge and you know you’ve got to be ready for it and you know, you’re playing the top team in the Western Conference last year in their building and they’re playing as good as anyone this year so we know it’s going to be a tall task but sometimes it’s better to play the best team, it brings out the best in you.

Alexander Steen, on why the Blues haven’t been able to bounce back from early deficits:
It’s tough to say. Today we start with a couple penalties or a double minor there and they obviously get a good start to the game. We’re still fine at that point, we’ll have to look at it. To me it’s details in our game that we aren’t doing as well as the opposition and tonight I thought they were better at us at the details. Just being, I don’t know, it was a good opponent, they played well and we didn’t answer.

Steen, on whether there are bigger picture issues with the Blues:
No there’s definitely fixable, easily fixable. We’ve got to find a way. I think the game before Boston we did things the right way and then against Boston we had a similar set-up, a couple tough bounces and they ended up in the back of our net and it ended up costing us the game. And then tonight it was a lot of the same. It wasn’t, I don’t know, we’ll look at it. But again, for me it’s more of the details in the game than it is anything.

Steen, on the team’s mindset after losing the last two games:
Well we get to bounce back here in another couple nights. We’ll have a day tomorrow to analyze everything and then we’ve got two quick ones and then get to come back home. Good tests, Anaheim and San Jose obviously. Two teams that play well at home so this is, we knew going in to this road trip it was going to be three tough games and we need to bring our A-game. Tonight I don’t think we did but we’ll make sure we do it in the next two.