ST. LOUIS - This is the story of a hockey team so hot, that if it resided in Canada we would know its roster from lines one through four, and three pairings deep.
Instead however, the St. Louis Blues reside in anonymity in the Midwest, quietly rolling along in an arena that's on its third name, under ownership that has been trying to sell off part of the team for so long that now it might settle for selling it to itself.
It all began coming out of the lockout back in 2005, with progress that was impossible to spot, at times. But something changed back on Nov. 6. The faceless team fired its faceless coach, Davis Payne, and after six years of an aimless, cashless rebuild, The Closer showed up in the form of one Ken Hitchcock.
Suddenly, "Now" has arrived in St. Louis, where the Blues don't lose anymore - and have fully installed themselves as the next dangerous Western dark horse.
"It's coming," veteran centre Jason Arnott said, surveying a dressing room full of emerging players who are 10, 12, 14 years his junior. "There's a lot of talent on this team, and bringing Hitch in brought it all together."
Here are some fast facts to chew on:
-- St. Louis is 21-3-3 at home this season, best in the NHL. (Can you even name their arena?). They're on a 13-0-2 run at home, where they haven't lost since Dec. 3.
-- The Blues allowed a third period goal in a 4-2 win over Buffalo Saturday, (the first in 11 games). (There was one in an overtime loss to Vancouver Jan. 12.)
-- St. Louis has four shutouts in its last seven games, and is 9-0-1 versus the Eastern conference this season, including wins in Philly, Pittsburgh, Washington and Florida.
"It's this mindset of checking for chances. We check for our chances," begins Hitchcock, who walked in the Scottrade Center, pushed some buttons, and restarted a rebuild that was seemingly going nowhere in Year 7. "We've bought into what the coaching staff is selling. We've bought into a checking mentality. We try to play for our goalies, and when we don't, we get drilled."
The Blues aren't getting drilled very often. They sit in a three-way tie at second in the National Hockey League's overall standings, and would vault into the No. 1 spot with a win at Joe Louis Arena Monday night.
They are what Toronto, Edmonton, and anyone else in rebuild mode hopes to awaken one day and find themselves to be: Chock full of young-ish players entering their prime, and with a coach who might just be the best short-term guy in hockey.
"Hitch didn't change everything," Arnott said. "He just tweaked little things we were doing wrong, and he's bringing out the best in different players. He knows how to do that."
We knew about David Backes, who is 27 now and has 400 games plus the 2010 Olympic Games under his belt. T.J. Oshie is a double-digit plus player in three of his four NHL seasons, who will score 20 this year for the first time. Chris Stewart, a manchild, could be Todd Bertuzzi one day; Kevin Shattenkirk's a smooth, puck-handling defenceman; the concussion-prone David Perron has a boatload of skill, and defenceman Alex Pietrangelo (drafted 4th in '08) is very, very good.
With points in nine straight games (3-10-13), he is the one player who Hitchcock - 556-355-164 as an NHL head coach and 22-5-6 behind the Blues' bench - had to watch up close to realize his true worth.
"He's an elite player, learning his craft on the job," Hitchcock said of the 6-3, King City, Ontario native Pietrangelo. "Petro, in the last month, he's probably 25 per cent better than he was when I first got there.
"The Oilers and Blues are in the same situation. The Blues just made that transition a few years ago."
St. Louis is four years ahead of the projects in Edmonton and Toronto, and fans in those cities will be happy to know that the Blues were no better than the Oilers - and not as competitive as the Leafs - at the same point in their curve.
That's how long these things can take, when you consider that both Chicago and Pittsburgh won their Stanley Cups seven seasons after the concerted rebuild was begun. The problem here, of course, is that there may be no money to top off the project with free agents.
"We need to find a way to get ticket prices up," admits team president John Davidson.
If he can't do it now, with this product, it will never happen in St. Louis.
Mark Spector is the senior columnist on sportsnet.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment