Blues Season Review...

Well it would appear St. Louis will once again be watching the playoffs from the comfort of their own home.  Unfortunately this feeling has become all to familiar with Blues players.   This year there was at least a glimmer of hope ahead, at the ¾ pole of the season St. Louis was only 3 points out of the final playoff spot so there was something to play for. This is when Blues GM sent out for some re-enforcements and traded for the likes of Zdeno Chara and Tyler Ennis to shore up the depth chart.  The bad news is his could have been the turning point of the season as when these two players arrived at the club it may have caused some turmoil within the locker room.  

St. Louis started the season with a 22-12-3 record and were in a playoff spot albeit early.  Hence the acquisition of Chara to help shore up the piece that was missing early a shutdown defender.  We are not to sure what went wrong here, maybe the Blues were playing over their heads but with one of the best shutdown defenders in their lineup they were letting in on average an extra .5 goals per game and only had a record of  13-27-5.  When asked during locker cleanups media day Travis Green had this to say “ I was excited to get the biggest man in hockey, unfortunately it did not work out.  Whether it was some of our younger players who were disgruntled by bringing him in because it would limit there playing time or maybe I changed up too much knowing he was back here I do not know, but it was a very disappointing last half to our season.”

Speaking of our Head Coach Travis was on the last year of his contract and sources out there are saying that Green and the Blues management have been talking about an extension but will wait and see if both sides can come to some sort of agreement at some point during the summer.   If  Green decides he does not want to come back there are a bunch of other candidates one of which would include a coach that is just down the street in St. Charles who is getting prepared for what he hopes is a long run in the AHL playoffs.

Team Awards were passed out the other night and they go as follows:

Blues MVP – Zach Hyman

Top Goalie  - Thomas Greiss

Top Defenseman – MEV

ROY – Andrew Mangiapane

Defensive Forward – Joel Armia

Chill MVP- Nic Aube-Kubel

Top Goalie – Alex Nedeljkovic

Top Defenseman – Caleb Jones

ROY – Joachim Bllichfeld

Next up for Blues management is to figure out their protection list for the upcoming expansion draft.  Luckily St. Louis has Carter Hart between the pipes so I would not expect a Calvin Pickard type of deal this time around!

Draft Notes:  St.Louis will have the 9^th best odds to win the draft lottery at 5.4%.  Although scouting this year has been quite difficult we are extremely prepared for draft day.  We can’t comment fully on what we hope to come out with as we do not know as of yet where we will be picking but having come out of the last 3 drafts with the likes of Lafreniere, Seider, Thomson and McIsaac we look to keep it going.

Minor League Notes :

The St. Charles Chill will be playing the Chicago Wolves in the first round of the AHL playoffs, they are hoping to continue there regular season success in the playoffs.  They had a record of 8-3 vs the Wolves in regular season.

14 EHE Chill rostered players spent significant time in the NHL this season or ended the season on an NHL roster so maybe we can expect a solid roster turnaround in the coming season? William Carrier, Caleb Jones, Aube-Kubel, Jacob Larsson, Dryden Hunt, Andrew Peeke, Karson Kuhlman, Alex Carrier, Michael Bunting, Joachim Blichfeld, Rem Pitlick, Adam Brooks, Brandon Hagel, Alex Nedeljkovic.

Not to mention the AHL players who may be making there jump into the EHE big leagues next season here is a list of prospects that should be making there entry into the EHE professional ranks next season.

Alexis Lafreniere (C)– New York Rangers

GP -56 G – 12 – A – 9 Pts 21 PIM – 8

Dominik Bokk (RW)– Chicago Wolves

GP – 29 G - 9 A – 9 Pts – 18 PIM - 10

Cameron Crotty – (D) – Tucson Roadrunners

GP -32 G – 1 A – 3 Pts – 4 PIM - 6

Jared McIsaac (D) – Grand Rapid Griffins

GP – 10 G – 0 A – 2 Pts – 2 PIM 2

Lassi Thomson (D) – Belleville Senators

GP – 35 G – 1 A – 12 Pts – 13 PIM 12