St. Louis Blues: Craig Janney Going Into The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame

The St. Louis Blues have had some pretty special players over the years. Some get reconized for it, others don’t. Craig Janney is getting his.

The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame announced Craig Janney, a former member of the St. Louis Blues, as one of their newest inductees on Monday. Although he never quite lived up to the lofty goals fans of the time set for him, it’s a deserving honor for a player that had a long and productive career.

Janney is one of those players, for us that grew up in that time period, that you imagined was on the Blues forever. In truth, he was in the city for a cup of coffee when looking at the entirety of his professional career.

Janney got traded to the Blues in February of 1992, not long before the trade deadline. Just viewing the numbers, it seemed like he wasn’t going to do much. Six goals and 36 points surely was a let down. Well, those numbers came in only 25 games.

To make an even stronger case for himself, he was a major part of a very good 1992-93 season for the Blues. He had a career high in points. He went off from the get go and ended that year with 106 points. He also fell just two short of his career goals total with 24.

Additionally, he was an integral part of their playoff run. He had 11 points in those playoffs. While there were other years he had more in the postseason for other teams, he still managed to help the Blues sweep their bitter rivals and Cup favorites, the Chicago Blackhawks.

Whether it was a shot or a pass, Janney ended up setting up the game-winning goal. It doesn’t get remembered like Hull scoring or Eddy Belfour going crazy, but without him tossing the puck toward goal at the right time, things may have gone quite differently.

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The sad thing is, it’s almost an afterthought that he’s even an American. He played on the Olympic team and one of the early World Cup teams, but those received so little media coverage at the time that little was known of Janney outside of his NHL career.

His career petered out a bit after his Boston and St. Louis days. Injuries began to catch up to him and it became difficult to keep him on the ice. Even then, he was scoring in the 50’s before an injury plagued season sort of put the final nail in his coffin.

Janney’s Blues career was not a disappointment, but at the time it was viewed in that light just a little. The problem he had was the same problem many Blues had from the 90’s and early 2000’s. They were brought in at the expense of a popular name going the other way.

Janney was brought in as part of a package that sent Adam Oates to the Boston Bruins. Oates had a special connection with Brett Hull and that made it all the more difficult to deal him away even though he had backed the team into a corner over a contract dispute.

Janney’s first full season featuring 100 or more points made the transition a little easier. However, more controversy ended Janney’s tenure. Allegedly, Brendan Shanahan became embroiled in an affair with Janney’s wife and that sent them both out the door eventually. Janney’s production had taken dip, which made the explaination of his trade easier to swallow, though in hindsight you don’t normally send someone out the door who had scored 84 points the prior season.

In the end, though his time in the city was brief, Blues fans should be proud of what Janney accomplished in our town and in his career. He represented the city well while he was there and he represented USA hockey well also.

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He’s deserving of this honor. 751 points in 760 career games is a pretty good marker. He might not have the credentials to make it into the Hockey Hall of Fame, but he’s deserving to get into the U.S. Hall of Fame. It might not carry the glitz and glamour of the big one in Toronto, but there isn’t a player alive that would turn it down if offered.

Congratulations to Craig Janney. As with all Blues members, we wish he could have stayed longer and won more, but that makes us no less proud of their accomplishments.