PHT: 2010-2011 NHL season preview: St. Louis Blues

[DaDitka]

2010-2011 NHL season preview: St. Louis Blues

Fri Oct 01,2010 6:06 PM ETBy Joe Yerdon

Last season: (40-32-10, 90 points, 4th in Central Division, t-9th in Western Conference) A terrible start to the season derailed the Blues' chances at making the playoffs. The team got in such a hole to start the year that despite their furious play in the second half of the season, they weren't able break into the playoffs the way they did two seasons ago. An unassuming bunch on paper manged to play hard at the end of the year once new coach Davis Payne took over for the deposed Andy Murray. Perhaps that's a sign of things to come.

Head coach: Davis Payne gets his first chance at a full season with the Blues. When he took over last season, his record was 23-15-4. Factoring that kind of action out over a whole season would make the Blues a playoff team and it's clear Payne's attitude and style seems to better fit a now very young Blues team.

Key departures: F - Keith Tkachuk (retirement), F - Paul Kariya, G - Chris Mason, F - D.J. King. Tkachuk's retirement, while a tough loss for the team, clears the decks for more of the Blues' young players to get their shot this year. Same applies for Paul Kariya's departure as he sits out this season to deal with post-concussion syndrome issues. Chris Mason signed on with the Thrashers in the off-season after the Blues acquired Jaroslav Halak from Montreal.

Key arrivals: G - Jaroslav Halak, F - Vladimir Sobotka, D - Alex Pietrangelo. Halak is the big acquisition of the summer coming over in a trade with Montreal. He was the Habs hero of the playoffs and the Blues are banking on him being the real deal after signing him to a four-year contract. Sobotka was tossed aside from Boston after getting fingered for the too many men on the ice penalty in Game 7 against Philadelphia. In actuality, Sobotka was another center the Bruins had and someone had to go. Pietrangelo will be coming out of junior hockey potentially for real this time after getting nine-game tryouts in previous seasons with St. Louis.

Under pressure: On such a young team with a new coach and a new goalie it's tough to pick out a player or executive under pressure, but in this case the guy meant to shoulder the burden for the Blues is defenseman Erik Johnson.

Johnson is a former #1 pick of the Blues and after missing a full season from a questionable golf cart incident two years ago, he came back last year and didn't do much to impress. Coming back from knee injuries is a tough thing to do, but much is expected of Johnson and if there's a weakness on this Blues team it's along the blue line. Johnson needs to step up and play like a #1 pick and put up the kinds of numbers he's capable of doing. Another middling season from Johnson should make the Blues executives nervous.

Protecting the house: In case you missed it, Jaroslav Halak is the man in goal for the Blues. He had a solid season for the Canadiens last year and was arguably one of the best goalies in the playoffs, carrying Montreal to the Eastern Conference finals. Ty Conklin is still around to provide relief in the backup role. If there's something that Halak dealt with on occasion in Montreal that will help him be prepared for St. Louis it's being expected to bail out your defensemen on occasion because he'll get his resolved tested in Missouri this year.

Erik Johnson leads the way on defense for the Blues with Eric Brewer, Barret Jackman, and Roman Polak backing him up. Where things go from there defensively is the question. Carlo Colaiacovo is banged up again, Pietrangelo is still trying to win a job and they're both being pushed by former Notre Dame defenseman Ian Cole. How things factor out there for St. Louis with a host of youth to contend with means the Blues will be a bit mistake prone at times as guys get to learn on the job. Then again, that could apply for a lot of guys in St. Louis as well.

Top line we'd like to see: Alex Steen-Andy McDonald-David Backes. McDonald is the "old man" of this bunch at 33 years-old. Steen had a breakout season last year playing on the third line and David Backes is a freakin' American hero. He's also a pretty good power forward to boot. Let McDonald do his thing and win face-offs, let Steen run free to skate and set things up and just let Backes steamroll people into submission and score dirty goals. There's no way this doesn't work.

Oh captain, my captain: Defenseman Eric Brewer is the captain of the Blues. We're betting you weren't too aware of that because, let's face it, the Blues stay under the radar pretty well and Eric Brewer isn't a guy you immediately think of when listing off Blues players. There was some debate during the off-season wondering if Brewer should continue to be the team captain, but Coach Payne stuck by Brewer. That's likely a good move to make with such a young locker room. There's no need to throw things out of whack like that in such a situation and, let's face it, Brewer isn't a guy we hear bad things about. He's got the NHL experience to be a good enough leader in St. Louis and until someone amongst the newer bunch of Blues emerges as a leader on the ice and the locker room (ahem, David Backes) status quo will do for now.

Street fighting man: The Blues love them some fighting. Even with D.J. King now in Washington, the Blues top three fighters from last year are still around lead by Cam Janssen. Janssen is the ring leader here for pugnaciousness with 19 fights last season. Not far behind him is sneaky fighter B.J. Crombeen with 18. Chances are if you've got a problem with something the Blues are doing on the ice, you'll have your choice of guys to address it with. If you're looking for more of a small-time fighter, Jesse Winchester will be happy to oblige you as he had 10 fights last season. If you're matching up with St. Louis, you'd best be putting on the foil.

Best-case scenario: The Blues get the consistently good goaltending they're praying for out of Halak. The Blues roll out two lines of scoring that all connect on the potential they've got to fill the net. Former 40-goal scorer Brad Boyes finds his touch once again while David Backes and David Perron make jumps in their own goal production. Alex Steen continues to improve his game built on his 24-goal success last season while Swedish centerman Patrik Berglund emerges into the playmaker they're hoping he'll become. T.J. Oshie and Jay McClement become a dynamic pairing of two-way forwards.The Blues defense, lead by Erik Johnson, plays more than capable and the Blues roll back into the playoffs to potentially scare the living daylights out of a top three seed.

Worst-case scenario: The offense sputters brutally once again and Halak plays inconsistently in goal causing this season to resemble last season in lots of eerie ways. The defense plays as inconsistent and spotty as they look like they could on paper, meanwhile youngsters Berglund and Perron don't evolve into better scorers leading to the Blues missing out on the playoffs once again, giving way to an equally inconsistent and hard-nosed team.

Keeping it real: The Blues have a nice setup here with their team. All four of their lines should be solid and while there's not too much there to work with depth-wise, the team is very, very young. Davis Payne's most important job this season is to make sure the effort level from the team is consistent night in and night out and that the team plays hard at all times. Halak is an upgrade over Chris Mason in goal and the issues the Blues will have on defense could be remedied by having young guys like Pietrangelo or Cole jump into the lineup and seize the opportunity as both will eventually become good defensemen in the future.

There are a lot of question marks with the team because there are so many unknown factors, but this team could fly under the radar in the West thanks in part to being in the same division with the Red Wings and Blackhawks.

Stanley Cup chances: On a scale from 1-5, with one being the worst chances and five being the best chance to win the Stanley Cup, the Blues are a 2. They're not a terrible team by any means so they're not worthy of being a 1, but they're not believed to be consistent enough and worthy of a 3. That's quibbling at its very worst. Suffice to say, a lot of things would need to go very right for St. Louis to get a shot in the West to make the finals and a lot of things would need to go very wrong for the contenders to fall down in front of them. St. Louis will give the fans some hope and perhaps a playoff spot to go with it, but that's about all.

[philco_3]

Who is this Jesse Winchester and is he better than Brad Winchester?

[DaDitka]

Who is this Jesse Winchester and is he better than Brad Winchester?

Maybe that is his alter ego that scored 13 goals two seasons ago.

[WaukeeBlues]

and David Backes is a freakin' American hero.