Let's start off with the good: the Blues took 2 points at home against Edmonton in a gritty performance after digging an early 2-0 lead. Jaden Schwartz showed why people are excited about his future, Jaroslav Halak rebounded nicely from allowing a pair of goals in 22 seconds, the Blues got back on track on the PP, and David Backes discovered how to put the puck in the opposing team's net again. It was the kind of game that gave you a reason to take a deep breath and say, "OK - we're still good."

Then, today - a 4-1 loss at Dallas that had Blues fans on edge for a few reasons beyond the play of Brian Elliott in net. David Perron's early goal was wasted, and he took a late penalty that the Stars converted into a PP goal; a pair of turnovers by Redden and Oshie got converted into goals; defensive play was downright terrible at times; Berglund is MIA. It was all the things that you've seen out of the Blues when they've struggled, and caused you to say to yourself, "where did last year's team go? Hell, where did that team we saw in the first 3 weeks of the season go?"

***

Yes, today's loss was not a reason to be optimistic, and yes some Blues fans are going to hang this around the neck of Brian Elliott, but let's note a couple things going on right now.

1. We're down the McDonald-Steen-Tarasenko line. Through the first 18 games or so, that was the best line on the team and did the best job of generating offensive pressure. Take that away, and it's that much less room everyone else has to work with.

2. It would be one thing if we were getting outshot or outchanced every night. By and large, we're not though. We're getting about as many shots (whether on goal or not) as the opposition, and a few nights we're clearly ahead (Colorado, Edmonton, Columbus). We simply aren't converting those chances as often as the opposition is ... and that's because

3. Even if you ignore the play of Brian Elliott so far, the Blues goalies have not been good. Sure, Halak has a pair of shutouts this season and nearly had another one vs. Colorado - but his save percentage of .901 is well under the league average of .910, and his GAA of 1.90 only looks good because the Blues allow the fewest shots on goal of any team in the league and Halak only faces about 19.3 shots per 60 minutes; bump him up to facing about 28-29 shots a game, and that's almost another full goal per game he allows. This brings up a question: are the goalies really that much worse this year, or is the defense just clamping down on bad shots and still allowing good ones?

4. Lots of guys are still not performing to potential. Berglund has been invisible at times this year, and he still leads the team with 9 goals. Pietrangelo is 3-9-12, -5 and has a ways to go to get back to last year's level. The Oshie-Backes-Perron line has been dysfunctional at times, and they still have a combined 15-29-44. Did I mention the goaltending?

There's things we're missing, and things we need to fix. It would be one thing if you could look at this Blues roster and say, "well, this is it - this is as good as it gets." Clearly, they have room to play better, and we know they can play better. They need pieces to return, guys to step up, and other guys to play better than they have. Elliott was clearly at fault for the 2nd goal today, but he can't score goals and he can't cover guys left alone on the wing in a prime shooting position or who come strolling down the slot unchecked. He needs to play better, but he's far from the only one you can say that about.

***

For all the abuse and criticism leveled by Blues fans elsewhere at Ian Cole, and all the complaints about "he's 24, he should be better, if he hasn't figured it out now it's time to dump him" I'm amazed that few of them realize how little experience in the pros he really has. He has a grand total of 176 professional games under his belt - and that's across 3 seasons (the current one is the 3rd) and a 9-game stint in 2008-09. Not that I'm comparing him to Duncan Keith, but before Keith ever played in the NHL he had 168 games in the AHL across 2 seasons (including the playoffs) and didn't get recognition as a top-tier guy for another 2 seasons, in which time he logged another 163 games in the NHL. And yet, there are people who think Cole (with 67 games in the NHL under his belt) should be playing like a well-seasoned veteran. Folks, in terms of development he's still got a long way to go. No, he's not a top-2 guy (putting him alongside Pietrangelo is not a sign that the coaches think he's a top-2 guy), he's probably a #4 if (when) he maxes out - and I think he'll hit every bit of that. Just give him some time to ... I dunno, learn the game at this level - something he hasn't had a ton of time to do.

The same goes for a guy like Jaden Schwartz. "Oh, he's too small - he gets knocked off the puck so easily." "Oh, he doesn't score a ton of goals." This is the first full year in the league for Schwartz; the 2-3-5 he's turned in so far in 18 games is decent. Put in perspective, he's tied for 24th in points among all rookies - and doing it in only 10:46 of ice time per game. Many veteran players will tell you they didn't realize just how much muscle they needed to put on until they went through that 1st season in the NHL, and they worked out hard to be ready and better for the next year. This is that year for Schwartz; we're not expecting his career year to be this year, we want him to learn this year and be better in the next year and the year after that. In that respect, he's doing fine.

Every player who ever played in the NHL made mistakes - Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr, Robinson, Gainey, Messier, Yzerman, Lidstrom, MacInnis, ... they all did. The difference is that they learned and tended to make fewer mistakes than most, and they made plays that more than made up for those mistakes. It's why I don't worry about a single mistake, I worry more about the longer-term pattern. Is the player still young and on his learning curve, or has he been around for a while and should know better? Is he learning from the mistakes he made, or is he practicing the definition of insanity? A few Blues players, you can say "OK - it was a screw up, let's move on" while a few you can look at and say, "um ... there's a problem." Look more at the long-term pattern, don't fixate on that one bad pass that ended up in the back of the net.

***

Do the Blues need to make trades? With what? For who? And at what cost? After today's loss, Blues Nation went into predictable, "we need to make a trade" most whereby our trash or prospects were proposed for other teams' gold. Again, no attention paid to who we're missing or the fact that guys can (should) be playing better - it was a simple knee-jerk, "_____ sucks, he's a bum, he's never going to make it - let's trade him to (team) for (highly talented star player)."

We don't need to make trades right now. Do we have holes? Sure we do - we could use a legitimate top-2 guy (ideally someone who plays alongside Pietrangelo), we could use a true playmaking center, and we could probably use a good faceoff guy. Ask, yourself, though - even if we plug the hole at LD and get that #2 defenseman to go with Pietrangelo, does that make this team an instant Cup contender? At what cost? And does that suddenly get Berglund to play with force every night, Perron to quit trying to dangle 1-on-4 throughout the offensive zone, Russell to handle guys bigger than 5'9", 165 lbs, Redden to skate faster than hot molasses, or Elliott to turn back the clock a year? This team is still probably 2 years away from seriously threatening for the Cup; last year's run was a nice start, but I think getting to the conference finals this year would still be a major overachievement. In a 48-game season, and especially after watching last year's playoffs, all you need is a ticket into the postseason; from there, anything can happen. Better to be patient and see what's available, than panic now and make desperation trades that may come back to haunt you - and the latter is what some Blues fans are all too eager to do.

***

Bottom line: as things stand right now we're effectively in 6th in the West after you adjust for games played. Not ideal, but not a disaster waiting to happen. We have 4 more road games, and time for guys to get their act together. Granted, I'm skeptical about a few players doing that (Redden, Russell, Perron) but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. We're not devoid of talent as a few trolls would love to claim, guys are not overrated as a few more trolls keep screaming, and I don't think last season was an aberration (though expecting that this year is probably being too optimistic). Treat the regular season as a learning process; if we're learning, we're making progress. We don't care how the regular season goes, all we care about is the prize at the end of the postseason.

It's not panic time, and the trade deadline isn't for another month. We've got time to see what we truly need, and other teams have time to see if they're in the playoff chase or if they're sellers in preparation for next year - but it's definitely time for everyone in the locker room to look at each other and say, "we're in this together - let's go out and get the job done."

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