St. Louis Blues: How One Difference In 1994 Could've Changed Everything

The St. Louis Blues have had plenty of offseasons that went well for them, including in 2018. However, 1994 was almost something unsurpassed. However, it was not to be.

The St. Louis Blues are not exactly the team every hot-shot free agent is dying to come to. Despite that, the Blues have won their fair share of offseasons and made some bold moves to help themselves.

2018 might be hard to top in terms of quantity. However, 1994 could have stood forever as unbeatable in terms of quality, if things had just gone slightly different.

As it was, the Blues made some big changes. They traded a solid, offensive defenseman, Phil Housley for a future Hall of Famer in Al MacInnis. Housley made the Hall too, but few would ever say he was better.

The Blues also made other supplemental moves. They picked up guys like Adam Creighton, Esa Tikkanen and Glenn Anderson as well as a few other minor pieces.

The Blues had a pretty good season the following year. They finished 28-15-6 in a lockout shortened season and finished second in the division. Unfortunately, they lost in seven games to eventual Western Conference champion Vancouver.

The thing that people forget is that offseason, and thus the season, could have gone differently. The Blues almost added another future Hall of Fame player and righted an injustice. Instead, they were robbed and glory went elsewhere.

The person I speak of is Scott Stevens. After languishing with the Devils for three seasons, Stevens wanted out of a New Jersey franchise that seemed to be going nowhere.

So, he signed an offer sheet with the Blues for a reported $17 million spread over four seasons. It seemed like it was all coming together.

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The Blues had MacInnis in the fold and were going to see the return of Stevens, who was ripped away three years before due to the league’s overreaction to tampering in the Brendan Shanahan case. Shanahan was still on the team and the Blues were going to have four superstars, two on defense and two on offense. It was going to be glorious.

Instead, dreams were shattered when the Devils matched the offer sheet. To a young person, who did not understand the idea that the Devils could match at the time, it was a gut wrenching turn of events. That one acquisition, had it gone through, might have changed the course of this franchise.

Like the current group of additions to the Blues, Stevens wanted to be in St. Louis. He had wanted to end his career here when he signed in 1990. To have a player of that caliber that wants to be in your city is a huge plus.

He would have been joining a team that had a good amount of talent. The 1994-95 team would have had the likes of Brett Hull, Shanahan, Craig Janney, Tikkanen, Steve Duchesne and Curtis Joseph.

That would have been a solid core to build around. Of course, Mike Keenan went crazy in the offseason and unloaded Joseph and Shanahan, but some of that was of their own making (the Shanahan saga).

I’m a firm believer in if you change one thing in history, everything else unfolds differently. Stevens might have kept Vancouver in check in that first series and maybe the Blues go farther that season. Perhaps they perform well enough that the team sticks with their star players and add more pieces around them.

Or, maybe things keep going the way they did. Even if you do trade Shanahan still, you’d have a defensive core of Stevens, MacInnis and Chris Pronger. There would have been far less pressure on Pronger as well with two top-flight defenders softening the blow.

The Blues added Wayne Gretzky during the season in 1996. Imagine a team with Hull, Gretzky, MacInnis, Stevens, Pronger, Dale Howerchuk (who was very good that year), Geoff Courtnall, Shayne Corson and Grant Fuhr.

That season almost definitely goes completely differently. Stevens would help keep the mighty Red Wings in check, which he did for New Jersey in the final. Do you think Nick Kypreos would have fallen on Fuhr if he thought he had Stevens to answer to?

Or if you subscribe to the theory he was crosschecked in, do you think Stevens would have been foolish enough to push him into his goaltender? Not a chance.

Maybe the Blues beat Detroit that year with a healthy Fuhr and Stevens clearing the crease. Maybe they win it all. Or, even if they don’t, maybe the summer situation never gets so crazy to where Keenan can run Gretzky off and the Blues remain near the top of the heap.

One thing is for sure and that is Stevens won multiple Stanley Cups with New Jersey. Their goaltender was an all-time great, but the Devils won a lot because of Stevens.

Top to bottom, St. Louis would have been equal to or better, in my opinion, to those early-mid-90’s New Jersey teams. Stevens was the difference.

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I honestly believe that had he been allowed to come back to the Blues, there would have been parades in St. Louis and not East Rutherford. Unfortunately we will never know.

The Devils signed the offer sheet and nailed the Blues a second time for tampering. They won their Cups and the Blues had the door slammed in their face several times during those years.

Oh, what might have been.

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St. Louis Blues: How One Difference In 1994 Could’ve Changed Everything

By Todd Panula | Jul 17, 2018

The St. Louis Blues have had plenty of offseasons that went well for them, including in 2018. However, 1994 was almost something unsurpassed. However, it was not to be.