St. Louis Blues: Scott Young and Paul Kariya Going Into Hall of Fame

The St. Louis Blues have a couple ex-players getting some very special recognition soon. Paul Kariya and Scott Young will become Hall of Famers, in different Halls.

The St. Louis Blues have a very storied past, despite being only half the age of some of their fellow NHL teams. Even without a Stanley Cup to their name, they have plenty of guys who have suited up in the Note that are some of the game’s greats.

Names like Brett Hull and Bernie Federko come to mind.

Players like Brendan Shanahan and Curtis Joseph might get the call one day soon. Others like Gretzky, Oates, Hall and Plante made their fortunes elsewhere, but were just as impactful when wearing the bluenote.

Two more names are joining that list. While they might be more alike with those last four names, they were still good Blues players.

Scott Young and Paul Kariya have been named to differing Halls of Fame in 2017. Young will be inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame. Kariya is going into the big one, the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The Young news got lost in the shuffle a bit last week. What with the Blues preparing for the draft and then making impact moves during, Young got swept under the rug a little bit.

As usual, he deserved a little more notoriety. However, I doubt he’s going to complain and is instead focusing on his induction speech.

Young was always an overlooked talent, despite his notable skills. His problem when playing with the Blues was fans wanting him to be the next Hull and he was never going to become that. That doesn’t mean he was not a good player.

Young started out, interestingly enough, as a defender on the US Olympic team in 1988. He scored eight points in six games during that Olympiad. He would score eight goals and seven assists in 20 games for the USA over his Olympic career.

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His best season came in his third year in St. Louis, at the age of 33. He scored 40 goals and had 73 points.

It was a bit of an aberration. Young only had 60-plus points in three seasons outside of that one big year. Sadly, it set him up for failure in the eyes of picky fans.

We all wanted a repeat performance, especially given that his 40 goals came in the year the Blues went to the Western Conference Finals. There was no encore.

Young would score 19 goals and 41 points the following year before moving on to Dallas. He would return for a final season, at age 38, and still scored 18 goals and 49 points on a very bad Blues team.

Kariya also made his name elsewhere, though his best seasons were long before he arrived in St. Louis. Kariya was most notable for his time in Anaheim, playing for the then Mighty Ducks.

His best season came out west when he scored 50 goals and had 108 points in 1995-96. Despite all his talents, he only crossed triple-digits one more time in his career.

In St. Louis, he became more of a playmaker instead of a scorer. He put up 65 points in his first year with the Blues, but only 16 goals.

Unfortunately, he never got to see the postseason with St. Louis. The Blues made the playoffs in 2008-09 but an injury limited him to 11 games and none in the second season.

He finished his career in 2009-10 with 18 goals and 43 points. The Blues missed the playoffs though and Kariya called it a career.

He goes into the Hall of Fame with his longtime teammate, Teemu Selanne.

Kariya finished his career with 402 goals and 989 points (36 and 123 with St. Louis). Young wrapped up with 342 goals and 757 (125 and 254 with the Blues).

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Both were solid players with the Blues in hindsight. Unfortunately, during their playing days, they drew the ire of many fans for not being what we hoped.

In the end, they represented the team and the city well as most have when wearing our crest. Both are deserving of going into their respective halls.

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