St. Louis Blues: Prospects Finish Tournament On High Note

The St. Louis Blues prospects concluded the Traverse City Tournament with a win over the New York Rangers. The Blues finish the weekend with a 1-3 record.

The St. Louis Blues, on paper, had one of the best teams that were invited to participate in the tournament. The Blues system has been ranked consistently in the top 10 by most major networks.

We all know that games are not won on paper and you actually need to play the games to determine the outcome, but the Blues had to have been one of the favorites to start the tournament.

The team dropped the first three games of the tournament but did not want to come away empty-handed as they put on an offensive show to defeat the Rangers in the final game of the competition.

Some of the big name prospects for the Blues impressed right away, but for others, it took until the final game against the Rangers to get things going.

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Many of the games played over the weekend featured a lot of penalties. This is not surprising, however, because it is the first time for a lot of these players that they have had to play at game speed.

This tournament was a great opportunity for some of these players to show that they are ready to take the next step and compete for a roster spot ahead of training camp.

There were a couple of players who made a statement to the team, and others who may have hurt their stock.

Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou were by far the best players on the ice every game this weekend. The future is bright for both of these players and both could make an impact on the team in 2018.

Thomas seems to be the most likely to earn an opening day roster spot. Blues head coach Mike Yeo and general manager Doug Armstrong both indicated that Thomas will get every opportunity to make the team out of camp.

Unless Jordan Kyrou repeats the performance of a player like Sammy Blais from a season ago, it might take an injury to one of the Blues top 9 forwards before we see Kyrou contribute in 2018.

Regardless of whether or not we see him on October 4 against Winnipeg, Kyrou demonstrated why he is one of the top prospects in the NHL with impressive performances in the tournament including scoring a hat trick against New York.

The player that has improved his stock with the team the most over the weekend might have been Jake Walman. The third round pick from the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, was involved both offensively and defensively all tournament long.

His route to the NHL may be the longest out of the three that were mentioned. Despite the impressive tournament performance, the Blues have one of the best defensive units in the entire NHL.

Even though the depth of the defense was exposed toward the end of the 2017 season, he is likely still behind players like Jordan Schmaltz and possibly Mitch Reinke.

Goalie Evan Fitzpatrick may have been the player whose stock has dropped the most coming out of the tournament. He did not look comfortable in net all weekend and it may have been the result of poor play in front of him but still struggled to find any success between the pipes.

The biggest takeaway from this weekend is that everyone escaped healthy and ready to go for training camp starting this weekend. There were moments that reminded Blues fans that the future is closer than they might think and fans should be on the lookout for these players in the NHL soon.