I didn't realize people actually thought preseason records meant anything, until last week when the Blues were sitting at 0-3-1 and the noise started getting louder and louder.

I first heard it on the Last Minute Blues podcast, then later it started spreading on social media. Donny Fandango was expressing concern that the team was winless in the preseason and asked the question of the group (paraphrasing): "does it mean anything that the Blues are winless?" Jeremy Rutherford, to his credit, quickly shot it down and said it means absolutely nothing.

That's because it doesn't. At all.

To be fair, they also brought up the fair point that there is something to be said about starting the season off slow and digging yourself a hole, and that they wanted to see the Blues get it going a bit more to in the hopes that they can avoid a flat start to the regular season. I agree with that 100%, and the Blues mostly quieted those concerns with 2 decisive victories to close out preseason against Ottawa and Chicago -- a 7-1 and a 4-0 victory, respectively.

Now, to the real point.

Preseason wins and losses are irrelevant, as there are just simply too many variables and moving parts to take anything away from those. For example, in the Blues first preseason game against Dallas the entire lineup (forward + defense combined, not counting goaltenders) featured just 6 players that were expected to see regular NHL ice time in the regular season this year -- Holloway, Toropchenko, Walker, Broberg, Kessel, and Mailloux.

Yes, all of five NHL'ers in that lineup.

The rest of the lineup was comprised of players that will either see very limited or no NHL action this year. Good luck taking something away from that, it's essentially a glorified AHL exhibition match.

Likewise, in the Blues third preseason game against Chicago the Blues were leading 2-0 after 2 periods with Binnington in goal then put Cranley in goal for the 3rd period and proceeded to give up 4 unanswered goals to lose 4-2. Again, much like much of the lineup against Dallas, Cranley won't see the NHL this season. Not unless there's some crazy wild rash of bad injury luck that knocks out several goaltenders ahead of him on the depth chart. Cranley is nowhere close to seeing meaningful NHL action.

With all that said, on a deeper level beyond wins and losses there are things that can be taken away from preseason. If you analyze the play of certain aspects of the team you can get a glimpse into what the regular season might bring. Things like the power play, the play of Logan Mailloux, the line combinations (Schenn and Neighbours on the third line, Pius Suter centering the second line), etc. These are things that you can analyze, not wins and losses.

I will be writing further about these specific items in more detail on subsequent posts ahead of the regular season opener next Thursday, thanks for reading :)