St. Louis Blues Might Be Making Mistake Naming Mike Yeo Coach In Waiting

By Todd Panula |

Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

The St. Louis Blues waited until the morning after the Stanley Cup Finals to flesh out their coaching staff. It’s a fairly divisive decision, to say the least.

The morning after the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup for a fourth time in franchise history, the St. Louis Blues turned to a former Penguins assistant to be their new assistant coach. Mike Yeo was announced as the Blues new associate coach and also named the head coach in-waiting for 2017-18.

Former Blues defenseman, Rick Wilson will also join the staff. Wilson was on Hitchcock’s staff when the Stars won the Cup in 1999. Nothing definitive was said during the initial announcement as to whether Wilson will stay on once Yeo takes over, but one can assume he will since he spent all five seasons under Yeo with the Wild.

There are several different feelings about the Yeo hire. On the positive side, he had the Minnesota Wild at the top of the league in penalty killing the year prior to his release. He can obviously coach, since he was an assistant under Dan Bylsma in Pittsburgh, took the AHL’s Houston Aeros to their league final and took the Wild to the playoffs three straight times and actually made it out of the first round.

On the flip side, his Wild teams were not the most offensively structured. The Wild only scored more goals than the league average once under his regime. They played what was very close to the old neutral zone trap in their playoff series against the St. Louis Blues and that style is incredibly boring to watch. We’ve seen too many skill teams winning of late to take a step back into a defensive shell.

Also, it brings up questions about how this was all handled. If Yeo is being named head coach for the season after next, was Kirk Muller offered the same and he turned it down? Or was he offered only the assistant position that he already had with no guarantees?

Personally, though Muller doesn’t have a great track record as a head coach, I’d rather go with someone who will be proactive offensively. It’s still up in the air as to how Yeo will approach things.

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Why give guarantees either? Especially if you were not willing to give any guarantees to Muller, but just in general. Yeo has apparently been given a four year contract. Hire him if you wish, but to handcuff yourself when you have no clue who might be available next off-season seems a bit foolish.

What if Boston tanks again and Claude Julien becomes available? What if some other name pops up that leaves Blues fans wishing the team had waited?

Yes, the Blues could very well just fire everyone if they have a poor showing. Yes, they could still go out and get whatever hot name pops up next season if it came to that. However, you don’t give your new candidates the best impression by naming a guy the next head coach and then never letting him take over.

Interestingly enough, the fan reaction seems very mixed. Some are willing to see how
it all plays out. Some are more optimistic and some are quite pessimistic. The middle ground is almost always where things end up, but it’s a disappointing hire from my own perspective.

I’m not one of those that was ready to paint Muller as the savior to take the Blues to the next step. However, he seems more offensive minded and it just seems odd that he would either turn the team down if they offered the same deal or was not given the same kind of deal that Yeo has been.

Yeo also seems like he has a somewhat abrasive personality. Will that mesh with some players that already seem to have been tired of Ken Hitchcock? Time will tell I suppose.

The Rick Wilson hire isn’t splashy, but should be a positive. The Blues defense is one of their strengths in terms of talent, but not physicality. Wilson will, no doubt, help them along the backside. The Blues have a habit of losing their marks and puck watching. Hopefully that is something Wilson can smooth out as well.

On the one hand, it’s not a bad staff at all. Yeo clearly knows how to get things done on the penalty kill and that’s something fans worried about with the departure of Brad Shaw. Wilson can only help the Blues’ defenseman get better as even the veterans are still pretty young.

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Yeo and Wilson showed they know how to win in Minnesota, so it’s not as though you’re handing the reigns to another Davis Payne. However, this is just one situation where I can’t drink the kool-aid just yet.

The Blues are now at a stage where they need to be focused on taking the next step toward a championship, not just making the playoffs. Yeo says he wants to go into every year thinking they can win a championship. Everyone says that.

Maybe all the naysayers will look back to this moment in a few years and laugh while they look at their championship rings. At this moment in time though, it doesn’t feel like the right move.

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