I don’t know about other Blues fans but it has been very hard to get hyped up about the 2016-17 Blues. As one of my favorite bands with a purpose said in 1988, “Don’t Believe the Hype”. General Doug Armstrong has been trying to salvage the summer with comments like the team needs to “take a half-step back to take two steps forward”. He later stated that he thought “we’ve been a little bit on autopilot the last couple of years, just bringing back a good group year in and year out. This is the first time we’ve had some change, and I think everyone’s excited about it.” Wait. What? I’m guessing he meant this more from a coaching staff standpoint but the people who think he spends too much time working for Team Canada must have loved that quote.
The quotes coming out of Coach Ken Hitchcock aren’t much better. Last month Hitchcock said that “this is the first time in five years that there’s going to be a significant change in a part of the system that we play”. Quick someone ask the coach about the his comments before the start of last season where he wanted to change the style to “playing a little bit more aggressive” having the defensemen “come a little bit faster and hard and closer to the action” while playing “reckless”.
Hitchcock further commented that the coaching staff was going to cherry-pick what Minnesota did when Mike Yeo was there. I’m not sure how warm and fuzzy this plan will make Blues fans given that the Wild finished 4th in the three full seasons Yeo was there and were barely a point a game team the year he was fired although he did finish 2nd in the lockout shortened season.
Hitchcock also made a comment implying that Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Sobotka may play together, commenting on their great chemistry. Wait what? Any way I slice that statement, I don’t like it. If he really thinks they are appropriate line mates, I can’t agree. If he thinks that Sobotka can move from line 4 to line 2, I can’t agree. A player who has never scored 10 goals and 35 points in a NHL season is not more than a borderline 3rd line player. I don’t buy the Sobotka hype.
Of course, this even ignores that training camp is three weeks away and Sobotka has done nothing concrete regarding his “plan” to come over to the NHL this season. To my knowledge and anyone else, he hasn’t filed the necessary paperwork. He hasn’t even come out publicly himself and said he was coming. All we have are reports that his agent told Armstrong he was and that Armstrong was planning for it based on that communication.
I put together a simple chart on the two more notable key forward changes for 2016-17. In reviewing it, you may note that the last NHL regular season totals for David Perron and Vladimir Sobotka barely combine to match David Backes by himself. When you look at the playoffs, they pale in comparison.
I’m not saying the Blues should have signed Backes to the contract Boston gave him but to think that Perron and Sobotka will replace Backes and Brouwer seems illogical to me. Remember, the Blues were only 15th in scoring last season so it isn’t like there was a ton of extra scoring.
The sky isn’t falling and the Blues should still be a good team but it’s not like there were any ground breaking off-season moves that will be expected to take them two more levels in the playoffs. The Blues will have to grow from within if they expect to take a step forward this season.
It’s a great day for hockey.
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