St. Louis Blues: What Can We Really Expect From Mike Yeo?

Like it or not, Mike Yeo is the St. Louis Blues new assistant coach and will be the new head coach for the 2017-18 season. What does that really mean for the team?

Now that we’ve all had a chance to digest the face that Mike Yeo will be working for the St. Louis Blues, it makes you wonder how things will change, if at all. We’ve all come to grips that he is on the staff for 2016-17 and will take over the following year, but we still don’t have a great answer as to what kind of changes he will bring.

Is it going to be much of the same? Is he just going to be Ken Hitchcock 2.0? Is he going to take the team in a completely different direction? Will he completely start from scratch once Hitch is gone?

It’s a dynamic enterprise, any way you slice it. You’ve got the man the players will be looking to for leadership on the bench but not in the full leadership role quite yet. While there have been coaches in the past where they were likely to take over, there doesn’t seem to be an instance in hockey in recent memory where the next head coach was given the title a full year before.

So, what should we make of all of it? Well, as with anything in life, it somewhat boils down to what you want to believe.

I’ve gone on record as saying that I thought the hire was a mistake at the start. I hope I’m wrong and I hope that Yeo will have learned from his mistakes.

When he coached in Minnesota, he played a very bland style. It almost amounted to the neutral zone trap employed by the New Jersey Devils of the 90’s that, while successful, was very boring to watch.

Some will say that was just a product of what he had to work with. They’ll say that any good coach will take stock of what he has available as a team and make the most out of that and conform a style that will work best with those players. If that’s what Yeo truly did, then he did a good job at it.

If his style really is to play the way Minnesota played under his leadership, then the Blues are in trouble. If that’s his fallback style with tweaks here or there, then fans may be clamoring for the return of Hitchcock before his spot on the bench even gets cold.

However, going back to the concept of choosing what you believe, we are left to hope that the coaches are not paying lip service and are honest with their recent evaluation of each other. Hitchcock and Yeo have been very complimentary of each other lately and are giving the impression that they are honestly learning from one another.

“He’s been unbelievable, as far as sharing his knowledge and sharing information as far as things that have gone on here,” Yeo said. “But also asking for input, very interested in a lot of things that we’ve done. That’s one of the things that has been more eye-opening and revealing to me than anything is just how committed he is to getting better. Even despite the success that he’s had in his career, he’s trying to find ways to get better as a coach and trying to find ways to get this team better.”

“I learned a lot already,” Hitchcock said. “We took some of the really good stuff that we thought Mike and his staff did, and we’re incorporating that into us. There were things in their game that you really had a tough time playing against and now we know why. So we’re going to use those things, and it’s going to make us a hell of a lot better.”

If we believe what both are saying, then it could actually be an exciting proposition for the Blues going forward. Regardless of who the coach is, the Blues are taking a different approach one way or the other.

Gone are the big, power forwards like David Backes and Troy Brouwer. In come the smaller, speedsters like Robby Fabbri and Ty Rattie.

The Blues are going for speed and quickness. Yeo had to know that when he signed on, though re-signing either Backes or Brouwer was still a possibility when he put pen to paper. He even said he wants to play a speed game when he initially signed with the Blues.

That’s a far cry from what we saw in Minnesota. Their whole goal seemed to be to muck things up and slow it down.

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So, if Yeo is serious and Hitchcock is serious and Armstrong is serious and they’re all learning a new way to go, then the Blues aren’t in that bad of shape.

The Minnesota factor is the reason those of us that fear Yeo, do so. If he has really learned from that experience and knows he has different talents with his new team, then he’s going to be a better coach and perhaps a great fit in St. Louis.

He knows how to win. He was part of the coaching staff that won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009. He took a Houston Aeros team that finished in last before he got there to the conference championship. He also took a Minnesota team with good top-end talent, but not enough on the mid through bottom lines, to the playoffs three of the four full seasons he was there.

Yeo knew what players to bring in for his AHL team to improve the offense and seems to have a good grip on how things need to be played in today’s NHL. So, if he and Hitchcock are really combining forces and taking the best from both of their minds, then that’s a very exciting proposition.

Hitchcock has his detractors. Yeo has his detractors. Many have accused both of playing an archaic style and not adapting.

If that’s what one chooses to believe, they are going to believe that unless the Blues win a championship. In actuality, it falls into the middle.

Hitchcock has changed. The old Hitchcock would never have allowed Fabbri, Parayko or Edmundson to play such significant minutes or even at all. He clearly gets a sense that the league is changing, going faster and trusting your younger players to perform is part of that.

However, no matter how much he is changing, he’s only going to be around for one season. So has Yeo changed as well? I believe yes, but we can’t know until we actually see it on the ice.

There is still worry about Yeo as an assistant. He won with Pittsburgh, but the Blues already had two assistants that had the special teams units clicking at a pretty good level. In Minnesota, the special teams weren’t exactly great, so even if he can be a good head coach, can he do the day to day things to help those units?

These are all questions that have to be answered by him going forward. However, call me a dupe for now, but I do believe what they are selling.

I do think that getting fired by Minnesota had a profound affect on Yeo. I do think it forced him to re-evaluate things.

As Doug Armstrong said, Yeo got thrust into it at a fairly young age. “I don’t want to say that he fast-tracked to the NHL, but he got there very quickly,” said Armstrong. “I think the opportunity to work with Ken, somebody who’s experienced, somebody to see a different way to do things, is going to be helpful.”

As I said in my original article, we’re stuck with it either way. Yeo is the coach whether he’s changed or not.

However, given his statements and given the way the NHL is trending, I think Yeo is serious about playing a faster game. As any coach, he wants to win.

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He’s not going to be so hard-headed that he pigeon holes the team into a style when it is completely against what is winning for everyone else.  He’s not going to clean house and change the roster in unbelievable ways.  He’s going to do the best with what he’s got.

He may not be the monumental shift from Hitchcock that some want, but he’s not going to be a carbon copy either.  He’s got to show how different he will be both from Hitch and from what he was in Minnesota.

Those that have trepidation won’t be assuaged by my words alone. Still, the idea of him being in charge is warming and does seem to be a step in the right direction.