No Tomorrow.

The word around St. Louis from some is that the Blues' season has been a success: a division title, third in the NHL, and the first playoff series win in ten years.

Reading a forum on stltoday.com entitled "What do you consider a successful season for the Blues?", many suggested simply winning a playoff series was the goal and anything else is considered gravy.

I hope the players think like myself.

I believe, when you make the playoffs, anything else than raising the Stanley Cup is a failure.

With the Western Conference so wide open, why should the Blues not expect to reach hockey's holy grail? I'll be damned if I am going to watch Phoenix, Arizona or Nashville, Tennessee have a cup parade before us.

Not one team in the Western Conference has ever won the cup. In my opinion, the West is far and away the stronger conference even if the "experts" don't agree (Of course they picked the Pens and Canucks to win it all).

Looking at the East, not one team is strong defensively. There are no stand-out goalies like the West contains. Come Thursday, seeds five through eight could be all that are left. In my honest opinion, most of the Eastern Conference's elite would have struggled to even make the playoffs in the West.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The West is were the Blues will really be tested. Nashville and St. Louis have to be the favorites to come out of their conference. Both have strong goaltending, play well defensively, and can score as needed.

Once again, let's not jump over Los Angeles, which will be a real test for the Blues. The number eight seed just took down Vancouver in a physical series where Jonathan Quick was lights-out.

Everyone around town is saying that Los Angeles and Nashville are scary match-ups for the Blues. I have news for you, they are all going to be scary from here on out, it's the Stanley Cup playoffs!

And why should the Blues be scared? To me, if I was another team, I would be afraid to face the Note:

• a red-hot power play.
• a red-hot McDonald (who has a history of being a red-hot playoff scorer on a cup-winner).
• red-hot goaltending.
• Great leadership, from the Captain to Vets like Langenbrunner, Arnott, and McDonald.
• we've been good all season long, never faultering under Hitchcock.
• Oh yeah, experienced coaching, who put in a system that has worked wonders and put belief in some underachieving players (See Oshie, Berglund). And...he's won a cup before.

I know I am looking through biased eyes while writing this, but to me, the Blues have to be favorites, especially if they can get out of the extremely tough Western Conference.

These opportunities are fleeting, fellow Blues fans, and our mantra does not need to be "We'll be good years to come, it's been a success, let's win it next year when we'll be even better." Look how tough the league is, look how tough the West is, and look how tough the Central is. You can bet that early exits by Detroit and Chicago are going to spark change in those organizations to make them competitive next season. Nashville will be back with virtual the same team, and Columbus will  be on the rise someday.

The parody in the NHL is remarkable. A cup contender one year can miss the playoffs the next. There has not been a repeat cup winner since 1998 (Detroit). The Blues were poised in 2009 to break out and be a perennial playoff team. They missed the playoffs for the next two seasons.

There are no guarantees to make it to the playoffs, and once you're there the goal is to win the cup.

"Think how good we'll be next year" is a phrase Blues fans need to lose. The time is now. The opportunity is right in front of this team, and it is time they seize it and not hope for a better tomorrow. There should be no tomorrow in the locker room or the expectations.