ST LOUIS, Mo – In seasons past whenever the St. Louis Blues were bounced from the playoffs the doom and gloomers would come out of the woodwork to have their yearly bashfest on the team. This season the Blues lost in the Western Conference Finals to the San Jose Sharks. While still very disappointing, the feeling seems to be different among fans and media on the teams exit from the playoffs this time around.
The Blues had anoth
er 100 plus point season, their fourth consecutive. The team got a stellar performance from 40 goal scorer Vladimir Tarasenko and a more than respectable performance from David Backes who had 21 goals of his own. The Blues had double digit goals from six other players including blueliner Kevin Shattenkirk with 14.
Adding more scoring punch to their lineup will be a high priority in free agency and at the draft starting this Friday night in Buffalo. Left wing will be one major order of business. The team got very little scoring from the position other than from Alexander Steen and the farm system lacks a blue chip prospect at the position.
The blueline isn’t in bad shape but the team might have to look ahead to the future as Shattenkirk has one year left to go on his contract so resigning him is also a priority for the team, otherwise he will become trade bait but next year’s trade deadline. The Blues have some solid defensive prospects and should continue adding offensive defensemen to their parent team’s core and in the system so it will also be a priority for the team.
Looking at the draft with the 28th pick overall a lot of the top offensive blueliners should be gone by the time the teams pick so look for the Blues to go on offense and look for someone who can play center or wing or be converted to wing. Even though there are no goaltenders taken yet at the goalie position don’t look for the Blues to go with a goalie except in the later rounds.
St Louis is not afraid to draft Euro’s so don’t be surprised if you see someone like Henrik Borgstrom in a Blues uniform, or another center such as Tage Thompson from UConn. At PHN we see a lot of the top wingers gone by the time the Blues pick so we get a feeling the Blues will make a call between Borgstrom and Thompson so we expect to hear the following announcement from the podium in Buffalo.
“With the 28th overall pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, the St. Louis Blues select, from the University of Connecticut, Tage Thompson.”
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