By Andrew Allsman| Posted: June 18th, 2012| Contact |
Coming off of the second-best season in franchise history,
the Blues are by no means content with their progress. The Blues accumulated 109 points this past
season and made it to the second round in the Stanley Cup Playoffs before
falling to the Kings, who would eventually go on to win the Stanley Cup. The Blues are no longer a team lurking in the
shadows waiting to become one of the elite, they are now on every other NHL
team’s radar, and will have a target on their back next season.
“We believe that we took a huge step as an organization the
last year,” said Blues' general manager Doug Armstrong, “We want to continue
down that path. We left our players with
this challenge: we can define ourselves as a really nice one-year story, or we
can define ourselves as a very good franchise moving forward. If they want to be a good franchise they have
to train a little bit harder, they have to prepare a little bit better than
they did last summer.”
“I don’t think we had anyone’s attention (last season), and
now coming off of a 109 point season every team is going to say that St. Louis
is a good team. We are not going to be
able to sneak up on anybody this year.
We are 12 wins away from our ultimate goal and we have to find a way to
close that gap.”
Being only twelve wins away from the Cup may not seem like
much for a team that has missed the playoffs five times in the last ten
seasons, but the Blues, who have never won the Stanley Cup since joining the
National Hockey League in 1967, know that this is no small task.
The 2012 offseason has already proven to be an eventful one
thus far for the Blues organization. Less
than a month into the offseason the Blues have already agreed to terms with the
highly touted Russian forward Vladimir Tarasenko, and have gone through an
ownership change that has resulted in personnel changes off of the ice. With the 2012 NHL Entry Draft fast
approaching and followed closely behind by the start of free agency, the Blues
are discussing how to go about improving their team.
“We will pencil in our roster with our signed players and
our restrictive free agents,” said Armstrong.
Then we look at players like Tarasenko and Schwartz that we think can
come in and play on our team, and then we look at the unrestricted players and
see what players can come in and complement that group. We will (negotiate) with those players over
the next ten days and see if there is any desire for those players to come back
to our organization. There are certainly
some of those players that we would like to talk to over the next ten days.”
Who the Blues sign or re-sign will largely depend on what
areas they feel they need improvement in, and the amount of money Armstrong has
to work with to improve those areas. One
area that is essential to the team moving forward, and could use some help
appears to be the offense. The Blues
finished in the bottom third of the NHL in goals scored this past season, and
were involved in many close games due to their lack of production offensively. But Armstrong feels this area can be fixed
internally.
“We think that
(fixing the offense) is going to come internally,” Armstrong said. “We also think it is going to come with
health. I know injuries are a part of
the game, but we have played the better part of almost two with (key players)
not in the lineup at different times. We
think that our offense is going to be there if we can stay healthy and our
(offensive) growth is going to come internally.”
The Blues are also eager to see how their top two prospects,
Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz, can contribute to the team, but they know
that expecting too much would be foolish at this stage in both player’s careers.
“Vladimir Tarasenko
and Jaden Schwartz are extremely close (to being NHL ready),” said Armstrong. “Jaden came from Colorado College last year
right to the NHL. He got his feet wet
and he got to be able to be with our team, observe how we prepare, and play
into the playoffs, and I think he has a foot up on his career coming into
training camp. Tarasenko is a player
that has played three years of pro hockey at the KHL level, has participated in
the World Championships a year ago, and was with team Russia. He is a player that we believe should step
right in and play on our team. That was
the desire to bring him over here, we told him that he has a spot on our roster
and now he just has to maintain it in training camp and prove to his teammates
and the coach that he is the player that we believe he is.”
“We are not expecting them to come in and be top-six level
contributors and score 25-30 goals right off the bat, but we see that they can
produce offense.”
The Blues could also choose to find help via free agency,
but with it being a weak market this season the Blues won’t be holding their
breath, though Armstrong indicated that the Blues will not hesitate, if
necessary, to improve the team through free agency.
“Free agency is a tool
that we are going to look at and see if we can improve our team. We are going to be active and we are going to
see how we can improve our team. I think
I’ll just leave it at that.”
Nashville’s Ryan Suter, and New Jersey’s Zach Parise are the
‘golden eggs’ in this year’s free agent market, but Armstrong already indicated
that the Blues are not looking to add outside help offensively, so any big
signings the Blues make are likely to come as help bolstering the
blue-line. The Blues are also interested
in finding Alex Pietrangelo a partner on the left side of the defense.
“The right side of our defense is set, hopefully for the
next decade with Pietrangelo, Polak, and Shattenkirk. On the left side we have Kris Russell, and
Ian Cole, who is ready for a full-time NHL role. So we have two spaces on the left side of our
defense that we have to fill out.
Whether that means bringing back our own unrestricted free agents, or
potentially looking at a trade or other unrestricted free agents on July 1
(remains to be seen). We certainly have
some work to do.”
Armstrong certainly makes his job seem easy as he continues
to find ways to improve the team every offseason and with, what is expected to
be, a higher budget this season Armstrong is no longer handcuffed and can focus
on the Blues’ needs. Armstrong is a
finalist for the NHL’s General Manager of the Year award, and for good reason,
so the question is, what will be his method for improving the team this
offseason? Will he find someone in free
agency, will he make a trade, or will he find help internally? Buckle up, the 2012 offseason is officially
underway, and all of these questions will be answered by the time training camp
rolls around in September.
*Some quotes were taken from an NHL Live interview on NHL Network
*Some quotes were taken from an NHL Live interview on NHL Network