MARYLAND HEIGHTS -- At 3-3-1, the St. Louis Blues are consistent in one area, consistent in being inconsistent.
That's an area that defenseman Marco Scandella said that, "We definitely have to nip that one in the bud. You've got to rise to the occasion, so we've just got to do a better job every game."
In the past five games, it's been bad, good, bad, good, bad.
The latest was a 5-0 thud on Friday against the Vancouver Canucks, just 24 hours after the Blues played arguably their most consistent game of the year in a 3-0 win against the Calgary Flames.
"It's consistency, right? It's just coming out every game and playing predictable and playing the right way like the way we can because we've done it and we've shown we've done it," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "It's commitment to doing that every game.
"It's not always easy, it's not always an enjoyable way to play. Players want to make plays, they want to score goals, but at the same time, you've got to do things right and you've got to make sure that you're not turning pucks over, we're putting them in deep and we're going to work and we're playing for each other out there. That's the most important thing. The most important thing is the team, nothing else."
And why has consistency been an issue?
"That's a good question. I don't really have an answer for that," Berube said. "I think it's something that we're going to keep pushing, we're going to do it in practice and we're going to keep pushing it to do it every night in the game."
The players know and understand consistency has been an early-going issue and needs to be rectified.
"Definitely for sure," Blues forward Jordan Kyrou said. "Like you said, we'd have a good game, playing well and doing the right things and then come out the next game and it's the opposite. We just need to try and build that consistency day in, day out. It's all work ethic and digging in."
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