Troy Brouwer
Troy Brouwer, we barely knew ye. Despite that, Brouwer thrust himself into St. Louis legend with his playoff performance in the spring of 2016.
Brouwer only spent one season with the Blues. It was a productive season too, scoring 18 goals and 39 points. That was a dip from his average with the Washington Capitals, but Brouwer was playing mainly a third line role with the Blues for much of the season. Those are good numbers for a third liner and decent even for a second line wing.
However, it was his leadership and locker room skills that brought Brouwer to St. Louis. The prior offseason, Doug Armstrong was looking for someone who had been through the playoff wars and come out the other side to help his struggling core get over the hurdle.
Once the playoffs began, Brouwer lived up to that and more. He claimed the 2016 playoffs as his own and led a tired and beaten down Blues team to the Western Conference Finals before they ran out of gas.
In 20 playoff games that season, Brower had eight goals and 13 points. That put him second on the team in goals for the playoffs and tied for third in scoring.
The only people that truly had better postseasons than Brouwer that year were David Backes and Vladimir Tarasenko. Tarasenko was a Chicago Blackhawks killer and had nine goals overall. Backes had three game winning goals as part of his seven goals overall.
However, it was Brouwer’s one game winner that put him in St. Louis history. Brower, a former Blackhawk who won a Cup in Chicago in 2010, eliminated his former team with the series clinching goal.
Unfortunately for fans, that goal was not late in the period or in overtime. We had to sweat out the last 10-plus minutes before we could finally celebrate a series win over Chicago. That had not happened since 2002.
Oddly enough, that was the only goal he scored against Chicago. His other seven goals came against Dallas and San Jose, including two in a win over the Sharks in the Western Conference Finals.
The Blues might have come up short that season. It was not for lack of effort on Brouwer’s part.