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There is More Than One Shade of the Blues |
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After 49 years of next years for the Blues, the loss to San Jose in the 2016 Western Conference final relieved Doug Armstrong of the annual deadline.
“In my mind, 2016 was the year,” said the GM. “If we didn’t win the Cup, we had to change it over.
“That clock ended when we didn’t re-sign David Backes and Troy Brouwer and traded Brian Elliott.”
A four-year contract extension announced two weeks ago for Armstrong starts it up again nevertheless. The longer any regime stays in control anywhere, the more the impatience with it grows, the more time speeds up in pursuit of a championship. Especially so for a team that never has won it all in 50 seasons of existence.
The late Ed Snider often would lament all the heartbreak since his Flyers last won in 1975. “Six trips to the finals (including 13 semifinals), you would think we would have lucked into at least one more,” he said. But the Blues, since being the instant class of the six 1967 West Conference newbies and going 0-12 in three consecutive hopeless challenges of the mighty Canadiens and Bruins, haven’t even gotten back to a final since. For this franchise, there needs a word stronger than luckless or star-crossed, actually might best by described by now as doomed.
We offer this in compassion, not disdain. While everyone strives, or should, to win a Cup, only one of 31 teams now does. So if the ultimate success is considered the only success, then sorry, that’s way too tough a standard for this age of sports.
As the NHL has grown and the quality of management with it, excellence has become maintaining a competitive team through years of less-than-prime draft position and the omnipresent drag of the salary cap. By that reckoning, the Blues historically have been a greater success than even the rags–to-riches champions–the Penguins, Blackhawks and Kings–of this decade.
Over 49 seasons, the Blues have won 235 more games than they have lost. This year’s playoff participation will be their 42nd in 50. In that time, the longest-ever drought without St. Louis’s postseason participation was just three years. Of the existing NHL franchises, only the Sharks have never gone more than two and only Anaheim and Montreal join the Blues with never having four.
Of course, when this year-in, year-out postseason participation has produced an incredibly scant three conference finalists since 1970, it is all the more reason to wonder why the hockey gods–presumed to reward diligence, perseverance and loyalty in the long run–have forsaken this poor franchise. The Blues really asked for such wrath only twice; the first when the Lauries, essentially running out on contract commitments by being among the hardest-liners in the lockout, got a cap and then dumped Chris Pronger anyway. The other was when Ralston-Purina abandoned the team, infamously leaving the 1983 draft table empty.
Otherwise, the Blues have been in it to somehow never win it. If they never had clearly the best team, they had plenty that were plenty good enough if things broke right. And they never have.
“Glory years,” said Armstrong. “Pronger, (Al) MacInnis, (Keith) Tkachuk and Brett Hull; St. Louis had a lot of great teams.
“Every year in that (turn of the century) period it was Detroit, Dallas and St Louis, with somebody going to break through. For one reason or another it wasn’t the Blues. Then came the tough stretch where the Lauries sold the team. We lost our fan base and had to reconnect.”
The Blues did that over three years. Since Armstrong replaced John Davidson as headman in 2010, have finished first or second place in their division five of six seasons. And still they reached the final four only in that 2016 Western final, a six-game loss to San Jose.
“San Jose was difficult—that team may have been our strongest – but probably not as difficult as being up 2-0 with home ice three years in a row and losing to Chicago, and LA twice,” said Armstrong. “The year we lost to Chicago we had traded for Ryan Miller, thinking he was the missing piece. We had mature teams and (Vladimir) Tarasenko and (Jaden) Schwartz on the verge of being elite players.”
He paused. “Actually, all the disappointments sort of run together.”
So do the successful regular seasons. As 2018 dawns, here the Blues are again, near the lead in the Central. The more things change, the more they essentially stay the same in St. Louis. Nashville, a finalist in 2017, has replaced Chicago as the team to beat in the division. Winnipeg has become a real Cup threat, and Dallas, retooling fast, hardly is in the rear mirror, especially with good friend Ken Hitchcock coaching the Stars and – by now, you have to believe in bad karma – perhaps a threat to ruin another season for The Note. Nevertheless, in the mix remain the Blues, who still are in St. Louis, nothing they take for granted in the town with pro football gone again.
The absence of the Rams may not have any tangible effect on the hockey business, except perhaps make the townspeople more appreciative than ever of having a team. It is a baseball town. But when all those years of playing the trusting Charlie Browns relentlessly being tricked by Lucy, what keeps these fans going is fantasizing the sense of fulfillment should the Blues finally win.
Chairman Tom Stillman essentially endorsed Armstrong, in his eighth year, as the guy to still make it happen, a good call. The Blues are sound operators with good ownership commitment. If by now nobody can believe things finally are aligned, certainly are not clearly misaligned.
“I don’t know about this year but I think next year the window starts to open again,” said Armstrong. “Our younger players will be a year older and we will import more prospects.”
In Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Klim Kostin and Tage Thompson, St. Louis seems to have as many of them coming or breaking in as anyone. Also, par-for-the course, more man-game lost this season (184) than most. Robbie Fabbri is out the year and Jaden Schwartz for at least another two weeks.
Snake bitten? What, the Blues?
Even after Schwartz returns, they may still need another top-six forward. . If it comes, it probably will not be via a rental, not when the GM says he thinks the team may be a year away.
That said, maybe the way these guys finally, ironically, get it done is by leaping from the weeds. Even if, in possession a game-breaker like Tarasenko and a big, mobile defense that is the envy of the league, the Blues continue to hide in the bulrushes in plain sight. The goaltending is strong, that D experienced and skilled enough to keep St. Louis out of a disastrous streak. The core forwards are headed into prime time, why Armstrong made the NHL trade of the summer to acquire Brayden Schenn.
“He comes in at the same age bracket as a lot of our guys,” said the GM. “It wasn’t just a rental; it made sense for us longer-term.
“(Morgan) Frost (the two-point-a-game junior that the Flyers took with the first of the two No. Ones the Blues traded for Schenn) is a helluva player. But we had gotten Zach Sanford and a No. 1draft choice (that became Thompson) in the Kevin Shattenkirk deal (with Washington).
“We also got another No. 1 (Kostin) when we traded Ryan Reaves (to Pittsburgh), plus a No. 2 when we traded Elliott to Calgary (for what became Kyrou.). Considering where we are prospect-wise, we wanted to improve our current team.”
Assuredly Schenn has, finding chemistry with Schwartz and Tarasenko like he never did in Philly with Wayne Simmonds or anyone, despite a longtime Flyer search for a No. 2 center behind Claude Giroux. As a Flyer Schenn made it clear he looked at himself as a center, but during an up-and-down six years, he had his best stretches on the wing.
“We wanted to look at Schenner as a center first and he had good chemistry with Schwartz right away,” said Armstrong. “It made everything easy for him.”
Not so easy is being without Schwartz. Schenn has two goals and four assists in the 1ast 15 games. Still Blues associate coach Craig Berube sees a much more consistent Schenn than the streaky one he coached in Philadelphia.
“Brayden is a better finisher now and a better playmaker,” said Berube. “He has come around to what everybody thought he was going to be (as a fifth overall pick by Los Angeles).
“Even without Schwartz, [Schenn] is still pretty effective. You would expect the points to drop off without Schwartz and it has, but Brayden still is creating. ”
In Washington over the weekend, Coach Mike Yeo separated Tarasenko and Schenn and the Blues squeezed out three goals–a lot for them these days¬–in an overtime loss. One of the league teams of greatest consistency until losing Schwartz, they are built better than most clubs would be to survive a long stretch without a top forward.
Indeed, survival has been a learned skill for a franchise that never wound up in Saskatoon despite the financial collapse of the birth owners, the Salomons; two ownership abandonment; and budgets in multiple eras even thinner than the fans’ patience level for Mike Keenan.
While waiting, waiting and waiting for just that one drive for the distance, and dreading, dreading, dreading, being letdown again, crying or feigning indifference to the curses upon the Blues is understandably easier than crediting them for their resiliency.
Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • 
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