St. Louis Blues Relying Too Much On Nostalgia For Coaches

The St. Louis Blues are still trying to fill out their full coaching staff. They added another former player to the staff, but are they relying too much on nostalgia?

The St. Louis Blues have filled another position on their coaching staff, or perhaps created a new one. Barret Jackman will be in charge of coaching the team’s development players.

With that, he won’t be working much (if at all) with the NHL roster. He will be watching, making contact with and coaching up the team’s prospects from juniors, college and the AHL.

The hire is an interesting one. It won’t affect the team that we see day in and out, but could have an impact on the future of the squad.

The problem with that could be two-fold. Firstly, color me an old-school thinker, but are the Blues hiring too many people simply because they played for the Blues?

You have Brett Hull in an executive role. Martin Brodeur is an assistant GM. Steve Ott just got hired to be an actual assistant coach and now Jackman is on staff to coach the development players.

Hull makes the most sense because he actually served in a similar position with the Dallas Stars as to what Brodeur has with the Blues now. Brodeur is being groomed to be a general manager some day, whether with the Blues or another team.

Ott and Jackman are the ones that give you pause a little bit. Brodeur is making decisions, but not franchise altering ones, so that’s more of a learning curve. Though Ott and Jackman have years of experience, they have no coaching experience at all at this kind of level.

This seems to be happening around sports and has mixed results. In basketball, Jason Kidd tried to jump right into coaching and it didn’t work out for a few years. In other sports, guys have made the switch very abruptly and it turns out with slightly better results.

Neither Jackman or Ott are the head coach, but you still wonder how much they are being brought in simply because the players know and like them instead of for actual coaching skills.

Another potential problem is what Jackman is teaching guys. Hopefully it is a do as I say, not as I do approach.

We all loved Jackman’s love of the Note and his will to get out there and play every game possible. However, after a promising rookie season, he never adapted to the current game.

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He was not fast enough, not skilled enough and had grown up playing a clutch-and-grab style that was outlawed. The Blues have enough players on their team taking silly penalties without teaching more to do the same.

That is a bit harsh, but could be a legitimate concern. Still, Jackman is confident and actually has less pressure on him than Ott could.

Jackman will be working with guys more on an individual basis as opposed to entire units or the whole team. That allows him to use his mentor experience as opposed to being an actual coaching figure. You don’t have to project authority in one-on-one meetings unless the prospect is being disrespectful.

That played heavily into Jackman accepting the role. “I think the development thing is perfect for me,” Jackman said. “I have an opportunity just to focus on a couple of guys instead of a whole team. I always felt as a player that I was pretty good in helping the younger guys, and this is an opportunity to continue to do that without having to get beat up on the ice every day.”

There are positives to what Jackman can teach. When you are a rookie or prospect, you have your entire career in front of you. You can subconsciously think it’s all going to be peaches and cream.

Jackman can tell these guys about the labors you have to go through, the trials and tribulations. He can teach guys how to take care of their bodies for the long haul. He played in the second most games ever as a Blue (803), after all.

Next: Can Steve Ott Be A Coach, Not A Friend?

In the end, this hire will likely have no visual impact. Unless a player says this or that happened because of Jackman’s involvement, we can only assume his teachings impacted someone or not.

Jackman does have a wealth of knowledge to impart though. If nothing else, they usually say that the greatest players don’t always make the best coaches. Jokingly serious, the Blues have sided with the right kind of players to be coaches with that in mind.