St. Louis Blues 2013-14 Season Primer

• Team Outlook from McKeen’s Hockey Guide:

  The Blues managed to prove the 2011-12 campaign wasn’t a fluke with their strong showing during the 2013 season. However, they matched up against the defending champion Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the playoffs and couldn’t beat them despite taking the first two games of the series.

  St. Louis was a middle-of-the-road team offensively last season and didn’t do much to address that beyond the signing of Derek Roy. If the Blues are to improve in that regard, they will need growth out of young forwards such as Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz. Odds are though, both players won’t be able to provide much more than secondary scoring in 2013-14.

  Fortunately, the team’s strengths lie elsewhere. The Blues arguably have the best top-four defensive set in the league with Jay Bouwmeester, Barret Jackman, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Alex Pietrangelo. Throw in Jordan Leopold, Roman Polak, and Ian Cole for good measure and their blueline looks deep as well.

  Goaltending has the potential to be a major asset as well, despite the fact that it’s not even clear who the starting goaltender should be. Jaroslav Halak is coming off a rough campaign, yet has produced some great seasons in the past and has a knack of rising to the occasion in big games. At the same time, Brian Elliott can never be trusted or ruled out. He’s been both the worst and best goaltender in the league at various points of his career and he seems to flip between the two extremes frequently. If both of them falter, Jake Allen might even take over after some solid starts last season. The team might even enter the season with three goaltenders.

  St. Louis is a team that shouldn’t be underestimated. They haven’t been able to put everything together in the playoffs yet, but that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of doing so.

• Team Fantasy Outlook from Dobber Hockey’s 2013-14 Fantasy Guide – Over a 150 pages of fantasy goodness:Dobber’s lowdown on: Patrik Berglund – The 6-3, 217-pound Swede saw his lowest minutes in four years (16:49), probably due to the tremendous depth on the Blues roster and the lack of injuries with this normally injury-riddled team. When it counted most – the playoffs – his ice time was right back up around 18 minutes. He’s used on both special teams (five PP goals and two SH goals) and is starting to endear himself to the coach. We’ve been waiting a long time for his breakout, but in the St. Louis system that “80 points” will never come. There’s still a hope for 70 though and I get the feeling that if he can beat his career high of 52 points this year, then that evasive 70 will come in 2014-15. He just turned 25 this summer.

  Backes We were told before the season started last year that Coach Hitchcock was going to roll three lines of forwards for the power play. And sure enough, eight forwards and four defensemen were used pretty much equally. With a longer season, that may not be as effective so watch for Hitchcock to hone the PP into two units by Christmas, with the under-performers losing out.

  Tarasenko started his rookie season with a bang, notching 10 points in the first eight games. Then he hit a wall, which was compounded by a concussion suffered midseason and he had just nine points in 30 games after that. I’m worried about this guy. The talent is there, but it was also there early in Nikita Filatov’s career. I think you see where I’m going. I believe that Tarasenko is far better than Filatov ever was, but that doesn’t change the facts. And Fact 1 is – Ken Hitchcock coached both players and his little patience for ‘dogging it’ or even the perception of ‘dogging it’. Fact 2 is – Tarasenko was a healthy scratch for most of the postseason. And that’s a song we heard sung back in Columbus with Filatov. Let me put it this way – I’m not aggressively pursuing Tarasenko in any league. I won’t turn up my nose at acquiring him, I’d love to have him. But I’m not paying out the butt to get him.

  I’m not that impressed with Stewart’s “comeback”. I need to see more. He had 36 points in 48 games, but 14 of those points came in a seven-game span in early March – seven points in two games against Phoenix, three in two games against a Sharks team that was struggling at the time. Take that chunk out and he had 22 points in 41 games – a 44-point pace. And then he had one point in six playoff games. I think my projection for him is generous.

  Roy had 104 points in 115 games prior to the surgery to his quad tendon in 2010. He had just 72 in 122 after the surgery. He’s not the same player. Or at least he hasn’t been yet.

Follow link for more info and stats

Additions: F Keith Aucoin, F Alexandre Bolduc, F Pat Cannone, F Christian Hanson, F Maxim Lapierre, F Mark Mancari, F Brenden Morrow, F Magnus Paajarvi, F Derek Roy.

Subtractions: F Jay Barriball, F Stefan Della Rovere, F T.J. Hensick, G Paul Karpowich, F Jani Lajunen, F Jamie Langenbrunner, F Andy McDonald, G Mike McKenna, F Andrew Murray, F Scott Nichol, F Anthony Nigro, F David Perron, D Kris Russell, F Brett Sonne, D Jeff Woywitka.

Promotion candidates: D Joel Edmundson, RW Ty Rattie, RW Dmitrij Jaskin, D Jani Hakanpaa, D Petteri Lindbohm

Player salaries: $62,266,667 (23)
Cap Number: $64,700,833 (23)
Bonuses: $1,250,000
Cap Space: $849,167
Forwards: $32,729,167 (14)
Defensemen: $26,421,667 (7)
Goalies: $5,550,000 (2)
Source: CapGeek

Forwards
Alexander Steen – David Backes – T.J. Oshie
Jaden Schwartz – Derek Roy – Chris Stewart
Magnus Paajarvi – Patrik Berglund – Vladimir Tarasenko
Brenden Morrow – Maxim Lapierre – Vladimir Sobotka
Chris Porter – Keith Aucoin – Ryan Reaves

Defensemen
Jay Bouwmeester – Alex Pietrangelo
Jordan Leopold – Kevin Shattenkirk
Barret Jackman – Roman Polak
Ian Cole

Goaltenders
Jaroslav Halak
Brian Elliott

2013 St. Louis Blues Draft Results 

St. Louis Blues Top Prospects

2012-13 St. Louis Blues Player Stats

Some info, stats and video taken from NHL.com’s 30-in-30 series.