Who Should the St. Louis Blues Count on as Additional Contributors This Season?

With the St. Louis Blues having added three new faces to their roster at Monday’s trade deadline, it’s very clear that they’re willing to go “all in” in order to make a deep playoff run, even with an existing cast which was already pretty well-built to go the distance. As we saw last season, however, it’s better to be safe than sorry with depth, as the Blues suffered an unbelievable string of injuries down the stretch and were without eight of their regular 18 skaters for the regular season finale. With that in mind, it’s worth wondering which players outside the current regular lineup have a chance of contributing on the ice for the stretch run.

Newly-acquired forward Olli Jokinen certainly has a track record of success, as he’s amassed four seasons with 30 goals or more during his 17-season career. It’s debatable how much he has left in the tank as a point producer, seeing as he has just three goals and four assists in 54 games split between the Nashville Predators and Toronto Maple Leafs this season. There’s no obvious reason to put him into the lineup ahead of anyone who’s in it right now, with the possible exception of fourth-line center Marcel Goc, who is basically a face-off and defensive specialist. With that said, Jokinen has a better chance of being a meaningful offensive contributor in the event of an injury to a top-nine forward than someone such as Steve Ott would.

There are two guys currently at AHL Chicago who stand out as viable depth options if the Blues happen to suffer more injuries among their forward corps down the stretch, Magnus Paajarvi and Adam Cracknell.

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The 6-foot-3, 207-pound Paajarvi could never really get anything going during his year-and-a-half with the Blues’ NHL club. A lack of offensive production and a reluctance to take advantage of his physical skill set spelled doom for him when 21-year-old Dmitrij Jaskin emerged as a legitimate offensive contributor earlier this season, as Paajarvi was waived and sent down to the AHL.

However, he took the demotion in stride and has produced since going to the minors, having scored five goals with nine assists in 19 games. It’s easy to write off that production, as baseball fans do with “Quadruple-A” players—guys who dominate the upper minors but have their flaws exposed when they reach the game’s highest level—but since Paajarvi, who hadn’t seen regular game action since the 2012-13 season, was once the draft’s 10th overall pick and collected 34 points in his first NHL season back in 2010-11, it’s possible that he just needed a reboot in order to get going.

GM Doug Armstrong specifically mentioned Paajarvi last week as a player the Blues could count on for depth at the forward position, saying the organization was “15 deep” up front. Since the Blues didn’t increase their quantity of NHL forwards at the deadline, swapping Joakim Lindstrom for Jokinen, it’s quite possible that Paajarvi will find himself in an NHL game before the end of the season. Considering the trouble that he faced with prolonged inactivity over his previous stint with the Blues, they should probably leave him in the minors until they actually need him, but Paajarvi seems to have a good chance to come up at some point, even if he has to wait until after the AHL Chicago Wolves’ season ends.

Cracknell, meanwhile, has been a contributor to the Blues’ past two playoff runs, and it’s easy to envision a scenario in which he joins the NHL club for the stretch run. It seems that the organization’s primary goal with Cracknell is to have him provide a boost to the Wolves for their playoff run, though he’ll likely be back in St. Louis if the Blues’ season lasts longer than the Wolves’ does.

Defensively, the Blues’ biggest boost will come when they get newly-acquired Zbynek Michalek, who’s expected to return at some point this month, and All-Star Kevin Shattenkirk, who’s targeting a late-March return, back on the ice. Until then, the team may actually be playing with a downgraded defensive corps as opposed to the one they’ve been employing recently.

Part of the salary and draft pick shuffling on Monday included the swap of Ian Cole for Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Robert Bortuzzo. At least in terms of statistics, that move is a downgrade. Bortuzzo, a four-year NHL veteran, has just four goals and 16 assists and a plus-minus rating of minus-5 over 113 career games, which includes two goals, four assists, and a plus-minus of minus-6 in 38 games this season. In contrast, Cole has nine goals, 22 assists, and an impressive plus-40 rating over 165 games, which includes a career-high four goals, five assists, and a plus-minus of plus-16 (also a career high) through a career-high 54 games this season. While Cole often caught flak for creating some costly turnovers in the defensive zone, it can’t be ignored that he was a pretty effective blueliner for the majority of the time that he was on the ice.

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With Michalek still injured, it’s up for debate as to whether Bortuzzo or Chris Butler is the better player to pair with Barret Jackman on the third defensive pairing until either Michalek or Shattenkirk returns. Though Butler has been a bit underwhelming recently after getting off to a hot start, he’s put up roughly equal numbers to Bortuzzo this year, has about the same amount of postseason experience (seven games, compared to Bortuzzo’s eight), and he has a total of 265 more NHL games under his belt. The one clear advantage that Bortuzzo does provide is his righthanded shot, which would allow the Blues to employ a more properly-balanced defensive lineup.

Before the trade deadline, Armstrong expressed a desire to fit 21-year-old defenseman Joel Edmundson’s NHL debut somewhere into the final 19 games of the regular season. Monday’s trades may have quashed that idea entirely, though maybe the 6-foot-4, 207-pounder could get a shot if neither Butler or Bortuzzo really establish themselves as deserving members of the lineup. With that said, it doesn’t seem likely at the moment after Armstrong said the Blues “have their depth” following the trade deadline.

Next: Blues Make Plethora of Moves at Trade Deadline

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