The Blues fill a big need, look to sure up roster

The Blues have done well this offseason to retain key pieces of last year’s team such as Keith Tkachuk, Jay McClemment, Brad Winchester, and Mike Weaver. I personally didn’t see Weaver coming back, not because of his lack of performance, but because I didn’t think that the Blues would have room for him on their roster. That changed once the team decided to buyout the final year of Jay McKee’s contract. The Blues now have Weaver, Erik Johnson, Carlo Coliacavo, Eric Brewer, and Barret Jackman locked up for next year. They also have a qualifying offer on the table to Roman Polak who is apparently expecting some massive contract offer from the Blues, but the team isn’t biting. The club would probably be willing to pay him more than just the qualifying offer they gave him, but they’re not going to overpay for a guy who’s just a supporting player, albeit a solid one.

Other in house options for the blue line are Tyson Strachan, Alex Pietrangelo, and maybe even Ian Cole. Strachan was a solid player last year who didn’t make many mistakes, but like Weaver, is only a supporting player who doesn’t make many big plays, negative or positive. That’s better than guys like Jeff Woywitka, who makes few positive plays and lots of negative ones, which is why the team didn’t give him a qualifying offer, but one key component that the roster lacked last year was offense from their defensemen. Pietrangelo could help pick up the slack here, but he may still not be ready to play at the NHL level. The same can be said for Cole, who is leaning towards returning to Notre Dame for his junior season, so he has a couple of reasons why he can’t help right now.

The Blues have been looking at free agent defensemen Sergei Zubov, Mathieu Schneider, and Francois Beauchemin. They don’t have a lot of leeway with the cap right now as they have a little under $6.5 million in space with six qualifying offers on the table. The Blues also won’t want to hand out a lengthy contract since Johnson, David Perron, T.J. Oshie, and Patrik Berglund all approaching free agency. Johnson and Perron will be restricted free agents after the upcoming season and Oshie and Berglund will be the same in two years. The team had to sink to the bottom to get such strong core players, but now they must make smart decisions so that they can retain them. The last thing they want to see of their investments is that they go on to win a cup with another organization like Brett Hull and Chris Pronger have done.

My preference would be signing Zubov to a one-year deal if he’s healthy. He's been a top offensive blue-liner for most of his career while Schneider's and Beauchemin's have fallen in recent seasons. If they can sign him for one or two million dollars, that might leave enough room to sign another forward as well. More than likely though, signing a defender in addition to the qualifying offers will leave the Blues needing to get much of their up-front scoring from their youngsters. The kid line made great strides last year. Andy McDonald was extremely productive when healthy and Brad Boyes had another solid year, leading the club in points. The team will also get back a healthy Paul Kariya, who missed the end of the season from November on. He was their big free agent signing two summers ago and he may have to be again. He’ll nearly be a new player added to the mix and the Blues just don’t have the cap space to add a premier forward. That being said, I’m glad the team didn’t do anything silly like give a 30-year old like Marian Hossa a 12-year contract. Yeah, you’ve done the math correctly. He’ll be 42 years old when that contract runs out. The Blackhawks better hope that they win a cup or two in the first six years of that deal because it’ll be a really big waste of money otherwise. Another thing worth noting about Hossa is that he only scored six goals in the playoffs last year. From a top forward that goes four rounds of playoffs, that’s not nearly enough. Good luck with that one Chicago.

The Blues did fill perhaps their biggest need on the first day of free agency when they signed Ty Conklin. He’s been the backup goalie for the Stanley Cup runner-up the past two seasons. Sure, he didn’t do much in the playoffs, but the fact that he allowed the number one on those teams to get enough rest during the regular season to be fresh for the playoffs certainly is a big positive. For the last two years, the Blues have had to rely way too heavily on one goalie for the stretch run. Chris Mason was fantastic last year and was probably the biggest reason the team made the playoffs. But if he could have had a few more off days during that stretch with the same result, maybe he doesn’t give up that squeaker to Alex Burrows to knock the Blues out of the postseason. I doubt the team could’ve overcome the 3-0 deficit, but it could’ve gotten the fans a playoff victory before succumbing to the Canucks. This season the Blues won’t have to worry about giving the top goalie a day off down the stretch, and it very well could extend their season.