As it always seems to be with the St. Louis Blues,
goaltending is one of the biggest question marks for the team heading into the
offseason. The Blues have a couple of choices to make, despite already
confirming their decision on one-half of their tandem for next year.
General Manager Doug Armstrong, in a postseason meeting with
the media on Tuesday, said what had already been suspected for most of the
season. According to Armstrong, Jake Allen will be a full-timer with the Blues
next season and for the foreseeable future.
“Jake Allen is going to be here next year,” Armstrong said. “He’s
earned that right. He’s a top American League goalie. He’s got that team in the
playoffs now and we are going to see how far he can take it. He will be one of
two. Who his partner will be will be discussed at the appropriate time, which
will be over the next few weeks.”
Two weeks ago, Allen was named the American Hockey League’s
goaltender of the year. He led the entire AHL in wins (33), shutouts (6), goals
against average (2.03), and save percentage (.928). He became the second AHL
goaltender since 1984-85 to lead in all four of those categories. Now, Allen is
leading the Chicago Wolves into postseason play, but his performance there will
not change the Blues’ mind. Allen will be in the NHL next season.
“We are having Jake
Allen come in here next year competing for starts,” said Armstrong. “Jake
Allen’s partner is going to have to hold Jake Allen out. Jake Allen is going to
have to compete with his partner for ice time.”
But the team is much less certain as to who Allen will be
competing with. There are multiple options, and Armstrong will be discussing
them with his staff over the next three weeks. By June, they will have decided
what direction they want to head. However, they aren’t the only ones who will
have a say in the process.
One of the options, and perhaps the one the Blues have the
most interest in pursuing, is bringing back Ryan Miller, who the club traded
for at the deadline. According to TSN, the Blues reached out to Miller’s agent,
Mike Liut, a month ago expressing their interest in re-signing the goalie. But
talks before the end of the regular-season were never serious.
Miller is expected to wait until July 1 to make a decision
on his next destination, but a return to St. Louis is not out of the question.
“Yeah (I would be interested returning),” said Miller.
“We’ll have to see where we are at. We will have to see how they feel about me.
I definitely like St. Louis. I like the guys, like the team. But we will see
what they feel about the playoffs.”
If Miller were to re-sign with the Blues, he would be the
Blues’ No. 1 goaltender and Allen would back him up. Brian Elliott would not
return to the team in that situation. However, this is a situation where the
Blues would want Allen to be a starter in the next 2-3 years, so a contract
with Miller is unlikely to exceed that time frame.
If the Blues choose to avoid paying Miller a hefty sum or
the goaltender chooses to sign elsewhere, another option they have is to use an
Allen/Elliott tandem, showing much more faith in the young Allen to lead the
team. However, there is no guarantee that Elliott would be willing to return to
St. Louis, as it has been suggested that he has proven himself enough over the
past few seasons to earn a starting role with another team. In this case, the
Blues would have to scour the market for another goalie.
But it is believed that the Blues would prefer the safer
option, which is Miller. But they don’t know at this point if that is a
reality.
“It’s a two-way street with Ryan at this time,” said
Armstrong. “He has opportunities. I want to sit and talk with him, get feelings
about our organization, how he felt about coming in. Where he thinks we are at
and if he has any interest being in St. Louis.”
Armstrong is expected to sit down with Miller and talk about
each side’s goals moving forward in the next couple of weeks, but nothing
overly definitive is likely to come at that time, which could mean the Blues
won’t know which direction they will be heading until early July.
The Blues received a lot of flak following their first-round
elimination for trading for the 33-year old goalie at the deadline. Miller was
brought in to steal games and win, which he didn’t do in the playoffs. But
Armstrong blamed the loss on the team, not any one player and he stands by his
decision to acquire Miller.
“As a management group, at the trade deadline, you want to
assess your team and you don’t want to spend fool’s gold,” said Armstrong. “We
believed that being neutral would be fine unless we could make one trade to get
the goalie. I think that Ryan wasn’t the reason this series ended in six.
“As a team, we didn’t get the job done. He’s certainly part
of that, but he’s not a scapegoat for this. It would be disingenuous to even go
down that path. He gave us an opportunity.”
Either way, the team will have to choose who they want as
Allen’s partner in the next few weeks, and hope that they get what they want.
Otherwise, it will be another season of uncertainty in net.