Postulation Post: St. Louis Blues Defensive Pairs

With the St. Louis Blues training camps not too far off and not too many moves made among the defense by GM Doug Armstrong, leaving head coach Ken Hitchcock with a mostly-intact core group of defenders. Recently, we tackled prospective forward lines.

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The Blues might have sent longtime defender Barret Jackman packing, leaving them with precisely seven defensemen on the NHL roster and a number of prospects to choose from, among them, then newly-signed Colton Parayko.

Who will hit the ice in the fall? We dreamt up some defensive pairings that, in a purely hypothetical scenario where Bleedin’ Blue’s staff gets the final say over who is iced and when, we’d try out in a heartbeat.

Let’s get down to it.

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St. Louis Blues First D Pairing: Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk

These two work too well together to break them up. Gunnarsson brings that two-way play, able to play shut-down defense or keep up with Shattenkirk when he’s on the go. Shattenkirk can run up and down the ice with the best of them, and has a shot that homes in on exactly the right spot in the crowd to reach the back of the net.

Aside from their complementary skills, these two have played together for so long they seem to know where the other is on the ice without even looking. Their passing is close to impeccable and Gunnarsson faces the higher quality of competition so Shattenkirk can focus on maintaining possession for the Blues.

St. Louis Blues Second D Pairing: Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo

I’m not varying much from the typical lineup, I know. But it’s hard to improve on perfection. I may not always agree with the way Hitchcock runs his team, but his defensive knowledge is beyond fantastic. Bouw and Petro make almost as amazing a pairing as Gunnarsson and Shattenkirk do; they are both able to play a shut-down defensive game while Bouwmeester takes the in-close action and frees Pietrangelo up to make a run up to the net with the forwards.

This current pairing allows Pietrangelo to score .2 goals/60 the third-highest rate on the Blues defense after Shattenkirk and Butler. (Bortuzzo tied Shattenkirk in goals/60 with a .26, but he played so few games for St. Louis that it would be unfair to include him in this particular statistic.)

On that note, Butler might be a good player to swap out for Pietrangelo as the season drags on. He had an amazing run towards the end of the 2014-2015 season, netting three goals and six assists in only 33 games.

St. Louis Blues Third D Pairing: Bortuzzo – Butler

To begin the season, however, I’d ice Butler alongside Bortuzzo, once again pairing a player who’s known for preferring the at-home approach to defense (Bortuzzo) with a roamer who likes to score. This may not be terribly popular with Hitchcock considering both Bortuzzo and Butler are relatively new to the Blues, each of them having played fewer than 40 games in a St. Louis sweater over the 2014-2015 season, but their solid performances might weigh in their favor.

That leaves Petteri Lindbohm as the seventh defender, who had a solid season last year, improving each time he stepped out on NHL ice. Lindbohm is more of the shut-down defender who prefers to hang back, and would do well swapping out with Bortuzzo occasionally in order to earn his stripes.

Colton Parayko becomes a wild card here as well. He spent the last three seasons at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and while he has been assigned to the AHL, his level of play and a single injury on the St. Louis defensive lineup could see him recalled to St. Louis next season. He and Lindbohm could make up a pairing, though both play a more defensive-defender role than not.

Tell us, Blues fans: who would you ice together? Any defensive prospects you think deserve to make the NHL roster?

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