The Pittsburgh Penguins will host the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night and with them will come the 6.0 goals per game average they have put up in the last four games. This is not great news Ken Hitchcock and company. The Blues own the 29th worst 5v5 goaltending heading into tonight's game at .905. Alarmingly pathetic, especially for a team that has visions on contending for a Stanley Cup.
The Blues decided in the offseason to move Brian Elliott to the Calgary Flames for a second round pick. They decided that Jake Allen was going to be the goalie for their future. While Elliott was a Blue his 5v5 save percentage was .930 in over 6,000 minutes played. That mark is one of the better ones in the NHL during that time frame. Jake Allen has been a .922 goaltender during his Blues career. Recently the Blues committed to Allen as their starting goaltender by giving him a four-year 17.4 million dollar contract which carries a 4.35 AAV. Things haven't gone to plan so far for the Blues and Allen and that contract doesn't even kick in until next year.
The red line is league average. You could say more of Allen's career has been below average than not. Allen has been so bad this year that he is currently not with the team and is back in St. Louis trying to find his game. That is probably a great thing for the short term considering the opponent is Pittsburgh tonight, but that isn't great for a goalie whose contract extension hasn't even started.
Due to bad goaltending the Blues are scraping for points and are currently in the #1 wild card spot. The Nashville Predators have recently passed them despite Nashville having a terrible start to the year. The Blues have a -13 goal differential and being that much in the red is usually a precursor to missing out on the playoffs. Currently benefiting St. Louis is the fact the depth teams in the Western Conference aren't as good as they've been in recent memory so they might be able to sneak in despite the goaltending woes. Regardless the goaltending is significantly holding them back.
Recently I have seen some tertiary conversations about Marc-Andre Fleury and the St. Louis Blues. Some of that talk has included Kevin Shattenkirk. The Blues have been exploring trade options for Shattenkirk as it appears unlikely the right-handed defenseman is going to re-sign in St. Louis after the season. After losing David Backes for nothing they probably don't want to lose another player with value to unrestricted free agency. Given the fact Jake Allen is spiraling out of control I can see why people would think St. Louis would want some goaltending help. However, I have reservations about a midseason Fleury centered trade for Kevin Shattenkirk as something realistic. One way it could become more realistic is if the Blues have a February to forget and fall completely out of the playoff picture and start thinking more long term than short term. Even then I consider it a stretch. Pittsburgh isn't going to help the Blues shed the Allen contract (they shouldn't) and I can't imagine St. Louis wants to tie up ~10M in cap space at the goaltender position.
All that said, the one position the NHL general managers seem to struggle with evaluating and placing value on the most is goaltenders. My personal views and logic on the position may not align with Doug Armstrong. Maybe it's more realistic than I think. Elliotte Friedman brought up a Shattenkirk for Bishop swap on headlines during Hockey Night in Canada. If Tampa Bay was contending I could see that making sense for both teams, but I'm not sure a UFA rental is something the Lightning should be chasing. Shockingly enough Tampa Bay is currently in last place in the Eastern Conference. They technically aren't out of it, but they might want to think about dealing Bishop for futures instead of a rental.
My thoughts are that the Penguins should pick up the phone and offer Marc-Andre Fleury for Kevin Shattenkirk and see what the counter is. The offer could get laughed at and the conversation dies right there or the Blues might come back with a counter. Doug Armstrong did trade for Ryan Miller a few years back despite having Jaro Halak and Brian Elliott on his roster that year.
Either way Pittsburgh should be assertively trying to find trade options for Marc-Andre Fleury. Finding a team that believes they are a contender and also has bad goaltending seems like one of the few situations the Penguins could find leverage in.
The one thing I will confidently say is if Jake Allen doesn't get his act together the Blues might start to explore goalie options in the offseason when there are more options for teams to move contracts. If that is the case perhaps an offseason Fleury trade to St. Louis becomes more realistic,
This is certain, the more teams with goaltender questions the better as Pittsburgh heads towards the expansion draft.
Thanks for reading!
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