St. Louis Blues Free Agent Frenzy: Ducking Defense

Four teams are left in the race for the Stanley Cup and the players who are coming up on free agency this summer are using the playoffs to demonstrate their usefulness either to their club or those who are on the lookout for additions to the roster. The St. Louis Blues, after an early-round exit, will be watching the remaining teams in the playoffs for potential additions to their roster.

St. Louis Blues fans want to see change in the club that disappointed by roaring through the regular season and rolling over in the post. Since it looks like the coaching staff will see little turnover, we are in for big roster moves this summer. This series addresses potential players the St. Louis Blues organization could take a long, hard look at.

Next: Blues Free Agent Frenzy: Rangers FA Could Improve Blues PK

This series selects one free agent (restricted or unrestricted) from each team that made it to the second round of the playoffs and examines how they would fit on the St. Louis Blues, both play-wise and cap-wise.

We have already gone through Minnesota, Washington, Tampa Bay, Montreal, Calgary and New York. Next, we examine the Anaheim Ducks for potential additions to the Blues. The Ducks are currently in a playoffs race against Blues central division rivals, the Chicago Blackhawks, and as of the time of writing, lead the series against Chicago 2-1.

If the Ducks take the Cup home this year for the first time in franchise history since the 2006-2007 season, a number of their free agents will find new homes at higher (possibly somewhat inflated) prices. But there’s always a bargain player or two to be had.

What’s Available

Of the two players soon to attain RFA status (Etem and Silfverberg) and the five to attain UFA status (Belesky, Fleischmann, Beauchemin, Holzer, and Souray), four of them have attracted considerable attention during these playoffs, and deservedly so.

More from Free Agency

Cost-wise, Etem and Silfverberg are probably not worth going after, not when there are so many UFAs available who could fill a need for the Blues at a lower cost, all the while bringing valuable experience and maturity to the team.

With Belesky, Fleischmann and Beauchemin available on, and adding in the fact that the Ducks available cap space is less than $12 million next season and you have a very good chance that one or more of these UFAs will have to move on. All three of them are possibilities for the teams looking around, and the Blues need some help.

While Belesky is highly tempting at 32 points during the regular season and 8 in the post in only 14 games, indicating that this right wing hasn’t slowed down at all (and in fact has sped up, something the Blues lack) he’s also highly likely to be re-signed by the Ducks. Belesky is only 26 years of age and scored last night’s overtime game-winning goal against the Blackhawks in Game 5. Pretty much the only way the Ducks don’t find a way to re-sign him is if there’s incredible bad blood between Belesky and management, and nothing of the sort has reached our ears.

That leaves us with Fleishmann and Beauchemin, and given the Blues current roster a left-handed defender — particularly one who can score as much as Beauchemin — is precisely what we’ve been waiting for.

Screen shot of Barret Jackman’s HERO chart courtesy of

Own The Puck

Barret Jackman, a lifelong Blue, has slowly but steadily decreased his offensive output over the past five seasons. While he’s a strong contributor on defense in terms of improving Blues’ possession numbers, his conversion rate is among that of bottom-four defenders and isn’t climbing back up any time soon.

Jackman’s contract is up this summer as he hits UFA status, and his $3.17 million cap hit could certainly be switched out for the comparable $3.5 million cap hit Beauchemin had on Anaheim’s roster. While Beauchemin is likely to look for a higher salary in terms of cap-hit, especially after this playoff run, his age will give the Blues some flexibility in terms of contract length.

And looking at his stats in comparison to Jackman make it clear that Beauchemin would be a welcome upgrade in terms of goals-for. The below Bombay Chart compares Jackman and Beauchemin (as well as giving us the average between the two) and shows that Beauchemin outplays Jackman across almost all aspects except in terms of possession.

2014-2015 Jackman-Beauchemin Bombay Chart courtesy of Emmanuel Perry and War On Ice

Jackman scored 16 points overall in 80 regular-season games, only two of which were goals. During the post, he put up zero points in six games. Beauchemin, on the other hand, put up 23 points over the regular season (during which he played only 63 games due to breaking his finger in November) and eight in the post over 14 games. Yes, Jackman has better possession numbers than Beauchemin, but possession doesn’t matter if the team cannot put up enough points to win the game.

As the Blues consistently have one of the highest Corsi-for percentages in the league, but a significantly lower conversion rate in the postseason, St. Louis badly could use Beauchemin’s postseason drive and points.

Jackman has outlived his usefulness for the Blues on the ice at this point and an upgrade is due. Francois Beauchemin could be that upgrade.

What say you, Blues fans?

Next: Armstrong Not Considered For GM Of The Year

More from Bleedin' Blue

Home/Free Agency