Blues Miss AGAIN, Wolves a Calder Contender

Another sad and lonely, yet somewhat routine season has gone by for the St. Louis Blues. Stop me when you have heard this before, last in the central, traded away their first round pick, NHL team misses the playoffs but AHL is a contender again.  It is almost like the cycle is on repeat.  Even bringing in the the likes of Jeff Carter, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Alec Martinez and Henrik Lundqvist could not stop the slide of the Blues missing the playoffs.  It seems that their is a lot to be learned on the defensive end of the game still in order for the Blues to succeed moving forward.  Vlasic -27, Daley -25, and only 3 people total on the team ending up in the positive this year, and one of those was a guy that was brought in close to the deadline.  Clearly some positive things to take away from the season though, Carter Hart, Carter Hart, Carter Hart and well Zach Hyman once again.  It appears that Mr. Hart will be ready for the show next season and the King is ready and willing to take him under his wing and show him the ropes come camp time.  And once again Zach Hyman has been named the Blues MVP for the second year running.  Ending the season with 27 goals, 65 PTS and being + 9 while playing all 82 games for the second year running.

St. Louis Management will be doing a bunch of studying for the upcoming draft, having 3 picks inside the first 31 and 4 in the first 39 should help them add to their solid prospect talent pool they already have in place.  Word is they would potentially deal one of their non lottery picks for a package of picks including a 1^st for next year

The Chicago Wolves were one point away from claiming a regular season division title, but they know that is not there goal this year.  The team was built to contend for a Calder Cup and that is exactly what they are doing.   They come in potentially boasting the best 1-2 punch in net, but realistically they both can't play at the same time so what does that really mean.  Well hopefully it means we only have to use one of them but we will have full confidence in either one that is between the pipes.  It is seeming like Nedeljkovic has earned his shot to start game 1 vs the Moose, but that remains to be seen as Pascal Vincent has not tipped his hand either way to this point. 

The Wolves do also now boast the all time EHE AHL leaders in Games Played (Carrick), Goals Scored (Grimaldi), Assists (Carrick), and Blocked Shots (Carrick).  Both players were obviously on the short list of late season call ups but we felt it best for them to be able to put a stamp on their AHL careers by obtaining these milestones as we know moving forward they will be with the big club.  They most certainly have the upper hand when it comes to experience against most of their playoff foes but they will be running into a team they went 4-4 against in the first round so there will be no easy games.  Both Neddy and Wedgewood has 2 wins each out of the 4.  And playing in the 2 Road and 3 Home game format it is imperative that they steal at least one game in Manitoba.  Day 1 of playoff practice is in the books and this is what the lines looked like.

Magiapane -Donato- Grimaldi

Carrier- Quine- Kunin

Haley- Brown- Aube-Kubel

Bunting – Vecchione- Greco

Carrick – Samuelsson

Carrier – Murphy

Carlsson – Bergman

Both goalies taking turn in starters crease.

In other related Chicago Wolves news, it appears that the Blues have yet to reach an agreement on an extension with the Chicago Wolves organization and if that