St. Louis Blues: Top 20 Goal Scorers in Franchise History

15. Brad Boyes

Boyes is one of the most interesting cases on this list. Acquired at the trade deadline from the Boston Bruins for defenseman Dennis Wideman in 2007 in a swap of two intriguing young players whose progress had halted, Boyes was an incomplete product with high upside when he arrived in St. Louis. He broke out in a major way in his first full season in St. Louis, though, collecting 43 goals, which ended up being the highest scoring output of any Blues player throughout the decade. Boyes added 22 assists and tied Paul Kariya for the Blues lead in points with 65.

He had another fantastic campaign in 2008-09. He still led the team in goals, lighting the lamp 33 times, and he improved his game as a passer to lead the team in assists as well, finishing with 72 points overall. Despite leading the Blues in points that year, he managed to be such a liability defensively that he had a plus-minus rating of minus-20, significantly worse than that of any other forward on the roster.

Boyes regressed in a pretty major way for the 2009-10 season, and he’s never even approached the level of success again that he found during his first two seasons in St. Louis. He dropped down to 14 goals during the 2009-10 season, and as the Blues were out of the postseason mix in 2010-11, Boyes was traded to the Buffalo Sabres at the deadline after scoring just 12 goals through 62 games.

Boyes’s career arc is extremely frustrating to figure out, especially considering that the Blues managed to participate in just four playoff games throughout the course of his five-year run with the team. The fact that Boyes emerged so suddenly and then regressed in the same way is very puzzling, but the fact that he managed to score over 40 goals in a season in the modern NHL must be respected.

Next: 14. The Tarasenkshow