Following an embarrassing 6-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on their home ice, their 10th loss in the last 14 games, the St. Louis Blues returned to practice on Monday probably hoping to turn over a new leaf. Instead, they reached peak dysfunction, as teammates Robert Bortuzzo and Zach Sanford got into a fight with each other. And no, this was not a verbal altercation, but rather a full on donnybrook:
https://twitter.com/spittinchiclets/status/1072215956645122055
And you thought your favorite team was a mess (Redskins fans might have a case). The Blues entered the season as one of the 10 favorites to win the Stanley Cup at 20/1 odds. Those odds have plummeted to 80/1 before we've even reached Christmas, and the team is showing little signs of improving them any time soon. This latest blowout loss came after a potentially momentum-shifting win in Winnipeg, where St. Louis shutout one of the league's best teams in the Jets. That's now looking like more of an outlier than a sign of positive things to come for the Blues.
St. Louis has been unable to recover from a start to the season that saw them drop five of their first six games, which eventually lead to the November firing of head coach Mike Yeo. His ousting came after a 2-0 home loss to the Los Angeles Kings, and it hasn't really sparked the team, as they've gone 3-5-1 since. The Blues are now second-to-last in the Central Division, and just one point separates them from the two worst teams in the NHL in the Kings and Chicago Blackhawks. That's not a sentence many thought they'd ever see after watching these three battle it out in the Western Conference playoffs for the better part of the last decade.
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