Season Gambling Preview: St. Louis Blues
The St. Louis Blues have settled in as that perennially hyped team of youngsters, projected to break out every year but never doing so. They had a cup of coffee in the 2009 playoffs, when they were swept by Vancouver in four games, but haven’t sniffed the postseason since. It’s time to ask, once again: this is the year?
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ST. LOUIS BLUES
Stanley Cup odds: +4000
Looking up and down St. Louis’ roster, you may not see any superstars, but I would argue that this is a smoldering group waiting to explode. Almost all the team’s impact players are young but they’re also not rookies anymore.
Power forward David Backes was an All-Star last season and leads the way up front. He’s hit the 30-goal mark twice in the last three years and his plus-32 rating last year on a non-playoff team is quite the double-take stat. In Chris Stewart, the Blues got a total steal from Colorado last season. This kid can play. The former first-rounder has back-to-back 28-goal seasons and tallied 15 in 26 games after the trade. St. Louis has two bona fide goal scorers to pace its offense.
It also has a collection of slick, playmaking forwards with upside. T.J. Oshie, Patrick Berglund and David Perron all have the ability to be first-line players. It’s just a question of when – or if – they finally break out. Berglund seems most likely; Oshie is the fan favorite; Perron has to overcome concussion woes before contributing anything. Toss veterans like Andy McDonald and Alex Steen into this group and you have a fairly balanced forward group with upside. [ad-4437448]
The blueline has changed over the last year, with pillars Eric Brewer and Erik Johnson shipped out of town. This is Alex Pietrangelo’s team now. This is the guy St. Louis wants to build around. He had 43 points and was a plus-18 in his first full season and he is the one Blues player with a superstar ceiling. Supporting him on the back end is a ragtag group that includes stay-at-home Barret Jackman, oft-injured Carlo Colaiacovo and underrated Kevin Shattenkirk.
Goaltender Jaroslav Halak got his first opportunity as an unquestioned starting goaltender last year with the Blues, who acquired him after his heroic performance with the Montreal Canadiens in the 2010 playoffs. His final numbers (27-21-7, 2.48, .910, 7 SO) were more or less what we expected but the Blues need more consistency from Halak in 2011-12. He posted a goals against average of 2.82 or higher in three full months, was at 2.36 or lower in two months and was below 2.00 in spectacular October and April showings.
As usual, the Blues are a real wild card team this season. They could easily replicate their last two finishes, watching their youngsters underachieve, and go largely unnoticed in the NHL again. But, one of these years, everything will come together for this team and we’ll see the Blues vault back into the playoffs.
I believe it happens this year. I see only one playoff team coming out of the Northwest (Vancouver) and three from the Pacific (Los Angeles, San Jose, Anaheim); I think four Central teams can make the big dance this year and I believe St. Louis will be one of them.
Prediction: 3rd, Central Division
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