The Blues lost to the Flyers on Halloween night 2-1, in a game where the Blues brought a lot more energy and hustle than in the previous catastrophe losing to Ottawa 8-1. The Blues outworked the Flyers, outhustled them. So why did they only score one goal? Bad luck?

Nah -- poor execution and ridiculously sloppy fundamentals.

Jordan Kyrou is the fan whipping boy for his turnover that led to a Flyer goal against. I get it, it was a bad play by a dude who has been around a while and should be better than this. But Kyrou was not to blame; if anything, he created the most offense of anybody and hit 2 posts.

If you looked at the stats you'd think the Blues should've won this game. Shots on goal were even at 21 apiece (a pretty sad number against Philadelphia, but not the point), and the Blues had the edge in Corsi For at 5v5 57 to 39. Expected Goals For at 5v5 were 1.73 for the Blues compared to 1.19 for the Flyers. The stats say the score should have been flipped and the Blues should have won 2-1.

Welp, unfortunately stats don't tell the whole story. The Blues were bad, and they've been bad for the last week now scoring just 4 goals in 3 games -- all losses. Against the Flyers they were rarely ever a serious threat to score, just so sloppy and out of sync all game long. Consistently a step slow, whiffing on pucks and making errant passes to nowhere. Losing the puck on their stick leading to turnovers and squandered offensive possessions. They were tentative and slow with their shots, allowing Flyer defenders the extra second of time they need to get their bodies in front of the shot to block it before it could ever reach the goaltender to make a stop. Philadelphia had 24 blocked shots.

The Blues will improve, of that I'm sure. But it ain't happening right now. Shots on goal and Corsi are inherently flawed stats, they don't tell you the quality of the shots being measured. NHL goalies will stop 99%+ of the shots they can see and get square to, you could have 60 shots on goal and still not score if all 60 are low-percentage shots. If you think the Blues are passing the eye test but just getting unlucky, then it is your eyes that are failing you. The Blues are not playing well right now, but if they continue to play hard and stick with it it'll come together eventually.