St. Louis Blues: Craig Berube Out With Wolves; Expected To Join Blues

The St. Louis Blues “officially” still have one assistant coach spot open. Don’t expect that word to be applicable for much longer, quotations or not.

The St. Louis Blues have been keeping one of the worst kept secrets since the day the team cleaned house in their assistant coaching ranks. Nothing has officially changed with that status, but the ball has begun to roll and it’s destination is almost assured now.

The Chicago Wolves officially named a new head coach on Wednesday. Rocky Thompson has joined the Wolves after leading the Windsor Spitfires to a Memorial Cup Championship in Canadian junior hockey.

That leaves Craig Berube without a job. We all assumed he would no longer be with the Wolves since he was interviewing with Buffalo and Florida, but there was always the possibility that he could fall back on the AHL job.

Now since that position is no longer his, we can focus more on the future. That future will likely involve Berube becoming the Blues main assistant coach or associate coach, if you prefer.

Again, this is not officially official, but it might as well be. Guys like Darren Dreger and Jeremy Rutherford are both reporting it. The only way it does not happen at this point is if some team comes out of left field and offers Berube a head coaching position.

This development is a double-edged sword though. It definitely has its positives, but there are drawbacks too.

The drawback is that Berube will not be working directly with any of the Blues prospects unless they make the NHL squad. How much credit you give to him is up to you, but he turned no-names like Kenny Agostino and Wade Megan into league leading scorers. He helped revitalize Magnus Paajarvi and brought Ivan Barbashev out of prospect limbo.

He took a team full of underachieving prospects, that missed the playoffs prior to his arrival and turned them around. They won their division and made it to the second round of the 2017 playoffs.

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Not having him guide the next batches of Blues farm players is not a net gain. The situation was bad enough with St. Louis no longer in control of their AHL fate, but without a familiar coach in charge, we know the prospects in Chicago will not be playing the Blues’ way.

On the positive side though, Berube will bring his talents to the NHL once again. He’s already shown he can be successful at this level. He coached the Philadelphia Flyers to a 75-58-28 record over two seasons.

He can breathe some new life into an offense that has gone very stagnant in recent times. By no means is he a miracle worker, but if you can get NHL production jumps on a similar curve to the turnarounds he produced with some of the AHL guys, then you’ve got some success on your hands.

If and when this move becomes factual, it will make for some interesting dynamics in 2017-18. The Blues staff will have a very different look.

While no assignments have been made public, you would assume Darryl Sydor would run the defense, Berube would cover the forwards. Steve Ott would seem to be taking over Steve Thomas’ sort of amalgamous role, basically just being the guy who has been there and done that.

With these coaches in place, the Blues have the potential to be a much more dynamic team. Sydor was an offensive defenseman before it was en vogue. Berube has shown his ability to get offense from guys who didn’t know they could do it.

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At this point, it seems how they all blend together under Mike Yeo will be the only question. It is one thing to impress in an interview. It is another to have to carry out someone else’s gameplan, night in and out.

As a franchise, the Blues are worse off without Berube at the AHL level. That always seemed like a short-term solution though. For the team alone, it is a net gain to have him there.

Now they just have to get some final pieces to the puzzle that will actually play on the ice. The team also needs a goaltending coach, but that hire can be made at any time.