50 Most Outstanding Players in St. Louis Blues History: 30-21
27. Brad Boyes
Forward, 2007-11; 327 games, 106 goals, 126 assists, minus-7 rating, 106 PIM
Brad Boyes is perhaps the player who benefits the most from the objective methodology and quantitative nature that was used to assemble this list. It’s easy to remember Boyes as a defensively undisciplined player who caught lightning in a bottle for a couple years. In reality, though, Boyes was one of the most prolific scorers in franchise history, and he deserves to be recognized among the Blues’ best players ever.
Boyes was originally acquired from the Boston Bruins in a one-for-one swap for Dennis Wideman at the trade deadline in 2007. After making a solid impression over the rest of that season, collecting 12 points in 19 games, Boyes really broke through during his first season with the Blues in ’07-’08. Playing in all 82 games, the then-25-year-old winger scored 43 goals and added 22 assists while posting a plus-1 rating. He led the team in goals and became the Blues’ first 40-goal scorer since Scott Young in 2000-01, and he tied with Paul Kariya for the team lead in points with 65.
Boyes came back the next season and did arguably an even better job of producing offensively, collecting 33 goals and 39 assists for a career-high and team-leading 72 points while playing in all 82 games once again. In a season where the Blues experienced goaltending issues and lacked a truly elite defenseman, however, Boyes struggled in his bid to help keep the puck out of his team’s net, posting a team-worst minus-20 rating.
After he posted three 60-plus-point seasons during the first four years of his NHL career, Boyes’s offensive production inexplicably fell off in a major way starting with the 2009-10 season. While he recovered as a two-way player and posted a plus-1 rating, he had just 42 points (14 goals and 28 assists), his lowest total since breaking into the league full-time back in 2005-06.
He bounced back a bit as a passer during the ’10-’11 season, collecting 29 assists in 62 games with the Blues, but his goal-scoring ability remained diminished, as he put the puck in the net just 12 times over that period. With the Blues out of playoff contention and holding somewhat of a fire sale, Boyes was dealt to the Buffalo Sabres for a second-round pick (one that the Blues would use to select Joel Edmundson) at the trade deadline in 2011.
Boyes never recovered the scoring form that he displayed early in his career, enjoying just one more season with over 20 goals (he scored 21 for the Florida Panthers in 2013-14) during an 11-season career that wrapped up last spring. His name, however, does remain scattered across the Blues’ history books. Boyes ranks seventh among Blues players for even-strength goals in a season (32 in ’07-’08), second (11 in ’08-’09) and sixth (nine in ’07-’08) for game-winning goals in a season, and ninth all-time among Blues players in game-winning goals.