St. Louis Blues: Prospects That Might Make The Jump
The St. Louis Blues should have an exciting future ahead of them. They seem to have drafted well, but the question is who might be ready to be a pro before the others?
The St. Louis Blues have plenty of young talent coming through the pipeline. We hear names through the rumors and some even from the general manager’s mouth. However, like their baseball neighbors, sometimes it is just bluster.
Dmitrij Jaskin is a perfect example of too much early praise being heaped on a player. Compared to Marian Hossa before his NHL career even began, Jaskin came out of the gates hot.
He scored 13 goals in his first full NHL campaign. It has all come crashing down since then and the question of whether he still has a spot on this team is a legitimate one.
That does not mean we won’t continue to look to the future and have high hopes. For every Jaskin, there is a Robby Fabbri, waiting to surprise us.
It’s not an easy task. There are lots of guys with immense talent at the lower levels that just can’t make it click.
Some are simply major junior or college players. Some guys are merely good in the AHL.
It takes something special to make that extra step. It takes something even more other worldly to be an NH superstar.
So, let’s take a look at who might actually be ready to make the jump to the NHL.
Tage Thompson
Tage Thompson is an inbetweener right now. He’s got a 50/50 shot to make the team next season simply because the Blues need depth at center.
He has the skills to make the league, but whether he deserves to make it next year or even soon is up to him. He is not one of these guys that wows you with stats, so it is more an eye test and a belief in his character.
Thompson averaged just shy of a point per game each of his two seasons at the University of Connecticut. He improved his goal scoring with 19 this past year in 34 games. However, in a 64 game season with the US National Development team a few years ago, he only had 26 points.
At his height and build, conditioning might be a worry. That is not to say he is out of shape, but big guys have to work at the speed aspect harder than other players.
Despite being a big kid, he will still need to add some size if he wants to be a consistent NHL player. It is one thing to have the talent, but you have to be able to put up with the grind.
That’s the one worrying thing about going from college to the pros, the extreme difference in the amount of games. If you go from college to the AHL you are more than doubling it. If you make the jump to the NHL, there is almost triple the amount of games.
Even the most in shape players can wear down with that grind if they are not ready for it. So, if Thompson can add some muscle and size without compromising footwork, he might have a good shot of making an immediate impact.
The thing we, as fans, have to do is temper our expectations. Thompson has every chance to be a good NHL player, but he’s not Auston Matthews. He’s not Connor McDavid or even Matthew Tkachuk.
Thompson is going to be a slower burn and work in process. If we let him grow, he’ll be fine. If we expect 20 goals and 30 assists right off the bat, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
Jake Walman
Jake Walman just signed an entry level deal with the St. Louis Blues. So, like Thompson, he gets to finish the 2016-17 season on a tryout contract with the Chicago Wolves.
Could he be the next Kevin Shattenkirk? That’s probably a bit of a stretch to expect a kid just out of college to be the next Blues All-Star. However, nobody knew Shattenkirk was going to be Shattenkirk until he did it.
Walman is not huge at 6’1, 201 lbs, but that’s big enough to not get pushed around. He’s also got some good offensive skills.
He had 53 points in his last 66 collegiate games. In his sophomore season, he scored 13 goals and had 28 points in 27 games. Walman even had 25 points in his third season in which he was coming off shoulder surgery.
Walman is not afraid to stick up for himself and his teammates as well. He had 106 penalty minutes in 107 games at Providence College.
The penalty minutes will need to be tempered at the professional level. It is one thing to be a feisty, hard nosed player, but you can’t put your team in a hole by being in the box too often.
One thing that Walman has going for him is he is already on Doug Armstrong’s radar. Armstrong put Walman’s name ahead of some guys that are currently wearing a Blues jersey when asked who might be able to impact the future defensively.
That could have just been coincidence. Perhaps Armstrong just got done with a scouting meeting, so Walman was on his mind. Or perhaps the organization truly is high on Walman and we might see him wearing the Note rather soon.
St. Louis wants to become a faster, more skilled team to keep up with the Jonses or the Blackhawks as it were. Walman might have the talents to replace Shattenkirk or at least come close to it.
He does not need to get the same production that Shattenkirk did to be a valued member. If anything, he would be a better asset if he had 3/4 the production but was a better defender.
Walman has yet to be a minus-player in his career. If he can keep that going by being a solid defender and chipping in with a couple handfuls of points, he might make a huge jump very soon.
Vince Dunn
Speaking of offensive defensemen, Vince Dunn is probably the next guy to get a look now that Jordan Schmaltz has officially suited up. Dunn has quickly risen up the depth charts in his brief time under the Blues’ umbrella.
Drafted in 2015, he already got a full season with the Chicago Wolves in 2016-17. In that time Dunn has already shown an ability to score.
In 64 games, Dunn has 38 points. He has 12 goals and is a plus-14.
Additionally, Dunn has been a big reason the Wolves have turned their season around. Chicago got off to a rough start despite some good performances from individuals such as Dunn.
Their coach, Craig Berube, got everyone to buy into his system and it has paid dividends. The individual performances were still there, as proven by Dunn’s offensive performances and yet the team results followed as well.
Like Walman, the Blues don’t need Dunn to be a huge goal scorer. If he was a solid powerplay contributor, kept up his current steak of 30-plus points in the last four years, the team would be set.
Dunn might need to get a little bigger. He is currently listed at 187 lbs.
That is not exactly small, but the NHL is a different monster. Even if he doesn’t get much bigger, he might need to get stronger just to go through the rigors of an NHL season.
On the flip side of that argument, Dunn is slippery enough to avoid being outsized. His work ethic has given him plenty of opportunity to out work his opponents and he does just that.
The St. Louis Blues have a very bright future ahead of them. These guys might not be the stars that Vladimir Tarasenko is, but they can be top six or top four guys if they blossom in the right way.
The good thing about the current setup is these guys don’t have to step in and do it all right away. When the Blues brought up a bunch of young, talented guys in the mid 2000’s, they had to be the core of the team almost immediately.
That pressure won’t be on these guys since the Blues have a solid core and the young guys would just be supplementing them. If you can do it, that is the way to go.
Look at Chicago. They have a core of three of the best players in the entire league. That has allowed them to bring along Artemi Panarin or Vinnie Hinostroza at a much slower pace and allowed them to acclimate.
Next: Blues Need Prospects To Step Up Soon
Nobody is saying the Blues will become the Blackhawks. The top of the lineup isn’t quite that good.
There is no reason to think this new batch of players cannot help the team win in the future. Perhaps one day they might be a piece to finally bringing that chalice down Market Street.