The St Louis Blues are a tortured team lately. The last few seasons have had good teams, deep with talent, knocked out of the playoffs early. One consistent thing about the St Louis Blues during this stretch is constantly changing goaltenders. Last season Jake Allen did nothing to break that trend.

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Looking back to the 2008-09 season the St Louis Blues have changed their goaltenders frequently. Some names to get the blue include Ben Bishop, Chris Mason, Ty Conklin, Jaroslav Halak, Brian Elliott, Ryan Miller and Martin Brodeur. Try to burn that last one from your brain. You can’t do it and it’s weird.

Now Elliott and Allen share the crease almost evenly. Last season Elliott had a few more starts but both posted nearly identical save percentages and GAA. The St Louis Blues gave the playoffs to Allen whom saw a significant drop in his numbers despite playing reasonably well. But when you change goaltenders as often as the St Louis Blues have, it’s easy to point the finger at Allen.

Easy doesn’t make it right. According to war-on-ice.com, Allen had the 40th best overall save percentage in the league. Consider the number of starting goaltenders in the NHL it doesn’t take NASA to tell you those numbers aren’t good. But Allen also had the 5th best save percentage in the NHL against high-danger shots. And he was the only goaltender in the top seven of that stat whom started at least half their teams games. By contrast Elliott finished 27th and 53rd in the same categories, respectively.

While I understand Elliott getting frustrated thinking about the number of times the St Louis Blues have tried to replace him, Allen appears the starting goaltender in 2015-16 and rightly so. Whether Allen’s overall save percentage is a lack of concentration or defensive issues or both is up to GM Doug Armstrong to decide and adjust to.

The team Armstrong puts in front of Allen and Elliott still needs some work for Stanley Cup contention. T.J. Oshie was moved for Troy Brower but that’s isn’t fixing this team. More players need to be changed to shape a different identity around Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz and Alex Pietrangelo.

Moving Elliott isn’t the best option. He doesn’t take up a bunch of cap space while providing a veteran presence behind Allen. But he will play behind him. It’s Jake Allen’s crease now. He will either take the next step and prove to Armstrong he can stop trading for other goaltenders, or falter and cost the St Louis Blues enough points to miss the playoffs in a deep Western Conference.