St. Louis Blues Must Return Scottie Upshall To Their Lineup

The St. Louis Blues made a semi-curious roster move coming out of their bye week and it paid off. However, it was never meant to be a permanent solution, so it needs to change back now.

When the St. Louis Blues came out of their bye week, they knew they needed a little mix up with their lineup to get some messages sent. A somewhat odd choice was removing Scottie Upshall from the lineup despite having Upshall in every prior game.

Normally this scenario would not raise many eyebrows. Upshall has mainly been a fourth line player during his Blues career, so fourth line players get put in and out of a lineup all the time.

However, Upshall has been anything but a normal fourth line player for the Blues. The combination of he and Kyle Brodziak have been one of the most consistent duos the team has had over the last two seasons.

They’ve been two of the team’s best penalty killers. On top of that, Upshall is one of the few remaining Blues that consistently throws his weight around and he’s small by today’s standards at 6’0, 200 lbs.

Upshall was rewarded for his high energy, up-tempo style with some playing time on the Blues top line. It was an odd choice at the time, but he seemed to really form a rapport with his linemates. Additionally, his straight north-south style allowed the higher skilled players to gain more room.

However, he was removed from the lineup coming out of the team’s bye week regardless. Despite being on a good offensive pace and clicking with so many different guys, Upshall was the one singled out.

For a few games, it made sense. The Blues wanted a little more grit and physicality, so they inserted Chris Thorburn during the road trip. It worked.

The Blues won two games in a row in Canada. Thorburn was chastised by the fans for lacking any real fist tosses in his two fights, but he was at leas sticking up for teammates. He also was one of the team’s better offensive players against Toronto. We can argue whether that’s a good thing or not at a later date.

Still, the Blues rolled the dice once too many when they went with the same lineup at home against the Arizona Coyotes. Playing Upshall would likely not have made a big impact, given how truly awful the Blues played. He might have helped though as Thorburn does not match up against the more dynamic forwards that Arizona boasts. That is not to blame Thorburn, since the top lines got burned, but just an observation.