Latest playoff collapse is nothing new to the Blues

St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock flanked by Chris Porter and T.J. Oshie.

Sunday’s 4-1 loss to Minnesota was the final nail in coffin of yet another playoff demise by the St. Louis Blues.

Despite earning the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, the Blues lost twice on their home ice to the Wild before losing the first-round series in six games.

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Minnesota clinched the series in St. Paul, but it was lost in St. Louis with two lackluster performances by the Blues at Scottrade Center. Their latest playoff collapse is nothing new to Blues fans.

Since losing to the Avalanche in the 2001 Western Conference finals, the Blues have been to the playoffs eight times, but only advanced out of the first round twice.

Even after they got back into Sunday’s game with a T.J. Oshie goal with 1.6 seconds remaining in the second period to head into intermission trailing 2-1, the Blues allowed Minnesota to score 62 seconds into the third period to regain its two-goal advantage. The Blues had a six-goal outburst in Game 4 sandwiched between a pair of lethargic efforts that St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock called "flat." Forward Jaden Schwartz said he didn't have any answers and defenseman Barrett Jackman said the Blues have been "Jekyll and Hyde" during the playoffs. 

"It’s either been feast or famine for us," Hitchcock said Saturday, via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We’ve been locked down in three of these games and got loose on two of them. It’s been one thing or the other offensively. From our standpoint, when you get the chance against this goalie, you’ve got to bury it because you’re not going to get a lot.”

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Sunday's loss marked the third straight year the Blues failed to advance out of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, despite being the second seed each of the last two seasons. St. Louis was the No. 4 seed in 2013, but was bounced by the fifth-seeded Kings in the first round. Los Angeles knocked the Blues out of the playoffs in the conference semifinals a year earlier, when they were also the No. 2 seed in the West.

Despite making the playoffs for 25 consecutive seasons from 1980-2004, the Blues advanced to the conference finals just twice – in 1986 and 2001. The Blues had the NHL’s best record in the 1999-2000 season, but a first-round exit courtesy of the Sharks awaited them in the playoffs.

The Blues actually reached the Stanley Cup finals in each of their first three years of existence – getting swept by the Canadiens twice and then the Bruins – but have not been back to the title series since 1970. It has not mattered who the coach has been or which players are on the roster, the end result, year after year, has been the same – playoff disappointment.

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In a twist of irony, the NHL's winningest coaches — Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Joel Quenneville and Hitchcock — have coached the Blues at some point in their careers, and all of them have won the Stanley Cup at least once, but none of them have won a title in St. Louis.

Hitchcock is just the latest to fail while the Gateway City still waits for its Stanley Cup dream to come true. The regular-season feast has repeatedly been followed by a postseason famine. 

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