Optimism at the All-Star Break

Most Blues fans have written off their chances for making the playoffs this season, but I offer to you quantitative hope. For starters, the Blues have won 7 of the last 8 possible points. Common knowledge, but you only have to dig a bit to find more hope. Specifically, one of my favorite stats: goal differential. Check out the stats for the Western conference sorted according to goal differential.

	Team		W	L	OTL	PTS	GF	GA	Diff	PP%	PK%
1	San Jose	45	34	6	5	73	160	108	52	23.6	85.1
2	Detroit	46	31	9	6	68	173	133	40	27.6	79.6
4	Chicago	45	25	12	8	58	152	114	38	21.1	82.8
	Minnesota	46	23	20	3	49	117	107	10	21.7	87.4
3	Calgary	46	28	14	4	60	146	138	8	19.2	85.7
7	Vancouver	48	22	19	7	51	137	137	0	16.9	80.7
8	Anaheim	49	23	21	5	51	136	137	-1	21.8	81
	Columbus	47	22	20	5	49	129	133	-4	11.4	80.2
6	Edmonton	46	24	19	3	51	132	138	-6	18	76.3
	Colorado	47	23	23	1	47	131	140	-9	17.1	77.2
5	Phoenix	48	24	19	5	53	126	139	-13	13.9	80.5
	Los Angeles	46	19	20	7	45	117	131	-14	18.2	82.1
	St. Louis	46	19	23	4	42	133	149	-16	22.3	79.9
	Dallas	45	20	18	7	47	130	152	-22	15.3	77.7
	Nashville	46	20	23	3	43	111	134	-23	13.7	84

Notice first that the Blues are not in last place in this metric, Dallas and Nashville are worse. What's more encouraging is Phoenix's stat (-13). Only 3 goals better than the Blues yet they are the fifth best team in the conference? Meanwhile, Edmonton (-6) is playoff bound while Minnesota (+10) is not?

What this really means is that Phoenix and Edmonton are better at winning close games while losing big. The way I see it, this does not make them good teams. If they are so good they would score more goals than they allow over a not insignificant 45 game period. They can just as easily lose close games later in the year and fall down. If the Blues continue to improve and Phoenix and Edmonton's luck runs out, there could be space for the Blues at the end of the season. It's too early to give up on them.

Is Oshie that Important?

The Blues were 5 -4 with Oshie on the roster. Since his injury the Blues are 0-4.

He's supposed to be out for at least another month. Let's hope we aren't completely out of the playoffs by then.

Happy Free Agency Day!

Unrestricted Free Agents are free to negotiate with any team they choose and Restricted Free Agents are allowed to sign offer sheets if they are submitted.

I have a feeling that free agency is going to be less and less important to hockey teams as we move forward. With the salary cap, teams are more and more willing to sign their younger players to long contracts that last into the player's 30s. At that point, it becomes a risk to sign said player to a long contract. Because of this, free agents will never form the core of a team.

As a supplement to free agency, the offer sheet and the trading of the rights of restricted free agents will become more and more prominent (see Ryan Malone). Because of salary cap restrictions, not every good restricted free agent can be retained by his team. The team can either trade his rights for a combination of assets or allow other teams to submit offer sheets to the player and collect the draft pick compensation.

Do not expect the Blues to ever make many major acquisitions. They will focus on signing their own players as the veteran contracts expire. St. Louis is a small market; the Blues rank in the lower half in revenue in the league and should be expected to have a payroll in the lower half.

Prospect Camp

I was able to attend the prospect camp but only on Friday. I was off to the right side of the rink and was only able to see one side of the ice. I therefore got a good look at the defensemen from the first skate and the forwards from the second skate.

I was not impressed with the defensemen that I saw. No one really had a booming shot. Only about one out of three shots hit the net. Passing did not look very good.

I was impressed with what I saw out of the offense. This was the first time I saw TJ Oshie and he is good. I didn't notice Berglund much. I saw Lemtyugov in Peoria for a game and he looked faster today (of course, this was just drills). Nikiforov = itty bitty. Reaves looked huge out there.

I didn't go to the game on Friday night. Comments have mentioned that Berglund seems timid. This could be the worst thing for him. At this point, I would not be surprised if he went to Peoria to start the season.

Bluenote Sighting - "My Name is Earl"

I love it when I see random references to the beloved note in pop culture. This just became one of my favorite shows.

If you know of any Blues references in pop culture, let us know and we'll put it up.

Denouement

The draft was over and, contrary to my belief, the Blues were done dealing (mostly; they picked up a seventh round pick this year for next year's seventh round pick). I have to say, I am a little underwhelmed. Here are the picks:

Alex Pietrangelo D 4th (1st round)
Philip McRae C 33rd (2nd round)
Jake Allen G 34th (2nd round)
Jori Lehtera C 65th (3rd round)
James Livingstone RW 70th (3rd round, this is the Jamal Mayers pick)
Ian Schultz RW 87th (3rd round)
David Warsofsky D 95th (4th round)
Kristoffer Berglund D 125th (5th round)
Anthony Nigro C 155th (6th round)
Paul Karpowich G 185th (7th round)

The later rounds are such a crap shoot that I won't comment on them.

Alex Pietrangelo was the expected pick for the Blues. Not as developed defensively as Luke Schenn but has more potential. Nikita Filatov was a wildcard but was never really considered a pick for the Blues by most. Assuming his health is not a questions, he is expected to be an offensive force from the blueline and a power play quarterback. The duo of Erik Johnson and Alex Pietrangelo might be enough to make us forget the tandem of Chris Pronger and Al MacInnis. (It won't) The comparisons I hear are Chris Pronger without the edge. That could be a good thing as Pronger lets his temper get to him sometimes. However, 'without the edge' makes me think he might not be aggressive. When I think of passive defensemen, my thoughts turn to Christian Backman and I shudder with disappointment.

Philip McRae is the son of Basil McRae, the former Blue. This is by and large considered a reach by the Blues. McRae was rated, pre-draft, as a third round pick and he went at the beginning of the second. He is said to have good size and good hands but his speed and footwork are lacking. That is the description of Charles Linglet, who is now a career minor leaguer (outside chance to make the team this year, but I would be shocked). For a second round pick, he must be better than that. But will he be Jay McClement or Craig Conroy?

Jake Allen was not the top rated goalie when he was drafted. It is so hard to determine the potential of a goalie that I don't know if this was an appropriate pick

The last player I will touch on is Jori Lehtera. He is Finnish and is already 20 years old. I believe that he was passed up in two previous drafts but don't take that as fact. He had a breakout year offensively in Finland that put him on the radar of Jarmo Kekalanian, a fellow Finn. With his (relatively) advanced age and his recent performance, he would be my dark horse to make the team. However, I have not seen his name on the list of prospects at the development camp.

Why Mayers was expendable

The Blues traded Mayers to Toronto for a pick and here's why. Take a look at the likely forward roster to start the season (less Mayers):

David Backes

Brad Boyes

Dan Hinote

Cam Janssen

Ryan Johnson

Paul Kariya "A"

D.J. King

Jay McClement

Andy McDonald

David Perron

Lee Stempniak

Keith Tkachuk "A"

TJ Oshie

Patrick Berglund

Nikolai Lemtyugov

The way I see it the lines shake out something like this:

Kariya	McDonald	Boyes
Tkachuk	Berglund	Perron
Backes	Oshie	Stempniak
Lemtyugov	McClement	King/Janssen
extra: Hinote

(assumes RJ is gone soon)
That fourth line is crowded without him. Besides, I have seen Lemtyugov three times and the player he reminds me of most is Jamal Mayers, so we really don't lose anything. We are lucky that Toronto took his salary away. As far as I'm concerned Hinote is expendable as well.

Having said that, Mayers has been a Blue since 1993. 1993! And during that time he has been a warrior. It has been great watching him play. He is a true Blue. I think he deserves a statue next to Federko's (maybe half the size). It could be a scene of him in action shooting the puck 5 feet wide of the net or backchecking hard. LOL

Seriously though, I wish him all the best. Good luck in Toronto, Jammer!

The Story so far...

The Blues have made two trades within the last 24 hours and heading into the 2008 draft. The first, on Thursday night, was the trade of Jamal Mayers to Toronto for a third round pick. The second was the acquisition of goalie Chris Mason from Nashville for a fourth round pick.

It has been stated over and over here and in other places that the Blues have too many non-scoring forwards. We all wanted this problem corrected but I never thought it would involve the release of Ryan Johnson (he hasn't been resigned as of yet) and the trade of Jamal Mayers. These were the two best defensive forward the Blues had. The two best penalty killers that the Blues had. Perhaps McClement and Hinote can step up but I no longer have faith in the penalty killing and wonder what the opposing teams' top lines will now do to the Blues.

Jamal Mayers was drafted by the Blues as a fourth round pick and first played for the team in 1996. He played in excess of 590 games for the Blues and only nine other players in Blues history have played more. At the time of his trade, he was the longest tenured professional athlete in St. Louis, including the players of the Blues, Cardinals, and Rams.

The Chris Mason acquisition was a good one. For a fourth round pick, the Blues got a better than average backup that will push Ben Bishop in the years to come for playing time.

The first round of the draft is tonight with the Blues picking fourth overall. Speculation points to either Alex Pietrangelo or Luke Schenn, both defensemen, as the Blues pick. I don't think the dealing is done, however.

Why is postseason hockey the best sports postseason?

Desperation.

Hockey is the only of the major sports where desperation can be seen in the play on the ice.

Baseball is an 'event' based sport. The pitcher pitches and the batter hits it or he doesn't. The action stops until the next pitch. This slows everything down. And it is not as though the pitcher will throw harder or the batter will swing harder. Sure some of the players can be more aggressive running the bases, but that's about it. The desperation to win doesn't translate on the field.

Basketball degenerates into a free throwing contest. Whenever a game in basketball is close at the end of a game, the losing team immediately fouls the winning team in order to 'put them on the line' hoping that they will miss there throws and get the ball back. This breaks up any kind of rhythm the game might have and slows it down.

In football, the closest thing is the hurry-up offense. The offense will quickly move down the field while the clock is running. The desperation can be seen in some of the reckless play of both the offense and defense. But often, the team that is leading can just run out the clock to win, leading to a kind of anti-climax.

In hockey, the desperation is palpable. The losing team begins to play a little more recklessly. They hit more. The defense pinches in more. The bench is shortened. This will lead to odd man rushes in a counter attack. Often times, the officials know this and will let play continue past minor offenses. Last night I watched 5+ minutes of continuous, desperate hockey in the third period. I don't have a dog in this fight but I couldn't help but feel the excitement.

I can't wait until the Blues get back there.