St. Louis Blues: Good Call On 'No-hansen'

Take a deep breath and thank your lucky stars that Kevin Shattenkirk is still a St. Louis Blue.

As many sources have speculated over the past few months, Columbus’ Ryan Johansen was finally moved Wednesday for a young marquee defenseman: Nashville’s Seth Jones.

Hints at Johansen’s departure swirled for months, and the Blues were, by all accounts, highly interested. In the end, however, the price tag must have been too high for the Blues. Both Shattenkirk and Colton Parayko are somewhat comparable to Jones, who will provide years of stellar play on the blue line in Nationwide Arena, suggesting that GM Doug Armstrong was unwilling to let go of either young defenseman.

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Even if the Blues had pulled the trigger, Johansen would not have been a perfect fit here in St. Louis. First and foremost, Johansen’s productivity and ice time have plummeted this season. Johansen played in all 82 games in 2014-2015, and produced at a clip of .86 points per game. This year? .68. For a team that went over 0 for 20 on the Power Play this season without Kevin Shattenkirk, the points lost with Shattenkirk’s absence would not ostensibly be redeemed with Johansen added to the lineup.

Shattenkirk is vital to the Blues in the short-term, and with Shattenkirk’s upcoming contract looming, Parayko is just as essential to the team’s future success. If either was the starting price for Johansen, a skilled player with a quickly-darkening reputation, the Blues were wise to pass. No need to mortgage the franchise after a four-game losing streak.

And as I’ve mentioned before, Johansen’s prissy contract negotiations and personality conflicts with John Tortorella spelled ill portends concerning any play under notorious taskmaster Ken Hitchcock. With Peter Laviolette’s more modern system, Johansen stands to put up major numbers as their automatic number-one center, free to play his game.

And then there’s the problem: our division rival just traded from a position of strength to become even scarier- even if we are currently undefeated against Nashville this year. The arms race is always on in the Central Division, and the St. Louis Blues have to look at making an ‘Apples for Apples’ type of trade, as GM Doug Armstrong mentioned last week.

Last night, the Blues blew yet another third period lead (which is its own infuriating problem) in Colorado, demonstrating a disheartening lack of ‘killer instinct’. With the parity in the NHL at an all-time high, if you don’t shut the door with a lead, you’re likely to give it up. If the Blues want to stay afloat in the playoff chase, they absolutely have to start scoring at a much better clip.

Looking up and down the lineup, the Blues’ offense is anemic. If you take Tarasenko out of the picture, the Blues are in the bottom 5 in terms of goals scored this season, and when the Blues play at even strength, they have nearly given up as many goals as they’ve scored, putting us in the bottom third of the league as well, both facts that assert that Jake Allen is the major reason the Blues are hanging on in the standings.

Much of the blame for this ineptitude falls upon Ken Hitchcock and injuries, but players in St. Louis’ top six have been in a scoring slump all year. Troy Brouwer’s got 15 points in 43 games. Jori Lehtera looks much better with fewer minutes, but he’s still only got 16 points, and we are over halfway through the season. David Backes is our heart and soul, but our heart and soul has a grand total of 24 points this year.

We are not paying these players a combined $9 million-plus to put up a grand total of 55 points. Patrick Kane has more points than all three of these players combined.

With the Blues having blown leads in 6 of the last 7 games, panic is again setting in here in St. Louis. While a knee-jerk monster trade would be ill-advised, the Blues would be wise to seek an “Apples to Apples” trade, as scoring must improve if the Blues want any hope of playing in April. It isn’t a matter of snagging one magical player to put us over the hump, but rather a question of what lateral change could benefit team scoring the most.

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If the Blues don’t enact a serious change, heads will roll. While Tarasenko, Pietrangelo, Fabbri and Parayko will be Blues for a long time, Steen, Backes, Schwartz and Berglund are up in the next few years. If the Blues’ window is short, then it is time for a deal.

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