St. Louis Blues Not Empty Handed, But Hosed At NHL Awards

The St. Louis Blues were not ignored at the NHL Award Show in Las Vegas. They were definitely slighted by the voters for several categories though.

So, by now, most St. Louis Blues fans know that their team came up a bit empty at the NHL Awards show in Las Vegas. They had an opportunity to take home five personal awards and only got to take the stage for one.

The one they got was the one most people thought the Blues might get. Ryan O’Reilly pulled off the win in the Frank J. Selke award category for the best defensive forward.

It almost seems odd for him to win because even most Blues fans do not think of him as defender. This is a guy who has put up 55 or more points in six straight years and seven of the last eight.

In his first year in St. Louis, he came close to 30 goals, with 28, which tied his previous career high. He also set new personal records with points and assists. You don’t expect that guy to be defensive.

However, just because O’Reilly is not stapling people to the boards or even blocking shots does not mean he’s not contributing. O’Reilly got this award based on his overall hard work.

He had 94 takeaways in the regular season alone. He had another 11 in 26 playoff games. He also had 13 blocks in the playoffs, which was closing in on half the total he had in the regular season.

O’Reilly was also a faceoff master. His numbers were lower than last season in Buffalo, but he still won almost 1100 draws.

That is 1086 times the Blues were given an excellent chance to either exit their zone or keep it in the offensive zone, which puts less pressure on the actual defensemen. If that’s not helping out your team’s overall defense, I don’t know what is.

He won another 308 faceoffs in the playoffs, many of them incredibly huge for his team. But, this is not a postseason award, nor are any of the other ones. That is somewhat of the problem.

I find it hard to believe that O’Reilly’s spectacular postseason performance did not creep into the minds of voters somewhat. Perhaps the rules of voting force you to turn your ballot in before the playoffs begin and all this furor is just needless noise from radio jockeys and keyboard blowhards.

If ballots can still be tabulated all the way up through the end of the actual season, then there is no way playoffs do not come into account for some people. It is only natural to take in the entirety of someone’s performance.

With that said, the Blues got absolutely hosed in the other categories. Jordan Binnington was not named Calder Trophy winner for rookie of the year.

Apparently what held him back was only playing in half the season. I fully understand that recognition, but he was so good in that half that it defies logic to not reward it.

He might have only started 30 games, but he won 24. Binnington won 80% of his games. He got the Blues points in 83% of his games played.

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Binnington had a quality start in 20 of his 30 starts. His goals saved above average was 13 points higher than the league average.

This argument of small sample size almost seems manufactured just so the NHL can say it is only a regular season award and Binnington was great in the playoffs. He was great the entire time.

Elias Pettersson is a really good player and will likely become a star in this league. 28 goals and 66 points is nothing that should be taken lightly, by any means.

What impact did he have on his team though? Binnington was one of, if not the biggest reason the Blues were able to turn things around. They went from last place in the league to first in the division, finishing third by the end, on the shoulders of a very thin goaltender. If that’s not the best overall performance by a rookie by raising his team up to lofty heights instead of just a few great personal stats, I’m not sure what the measuring stick is.

The same is true for Craig Berube. Going in, we all knew it was likely Barry Trotz would win this thing.

Trotz did a fantastic job and was a great example that system can have a huge impact compared to just players. The New York Islanders lost one of the best players in the league over the summer and Trotz still improved them as a team. I have no qualms about him winning it other than I think Berube’s impact was greater.

Trotz had an entire offseason and training camp to get his guys to buy in. Berube had 3/4 of a season.

He took over a team that clearly had locker room issues that had boiled over and were rudderless from a coach that seemingly had no solid system of his own. Berube shut down the behind the scenes BS right away, got them to not only play together but truly become a family, took them on an 11-game win streak and eventually to the promised land.

The idea that he finished in third in this voting is a farce. I have followed the career of Jon Cooper and he is a fantastic coach.

Cooper has won ever single place he has been, so his methods are tested and true. I’m sorry though, but guiding the team with the most overall talent is not better than what Berube did.

Phil Jackson was a great coach, but he was more of a personality manager having to deal with some of the biggest egos in the game. It feels like that was more Cooper’s job in 2018-19. He did it well and led his team to a record-tying number of wins. Berube still took a team from worst to first, even if not by the end of the regular season. It just feels like there was more of a culture shift and actual coaching done in St. Louis than just the managing of expectation done in Tampa Bay.

Last, but not least, we have Doug Armstrong not winning General Manager of the year. Like all the players under his banner, Armstrong likely does not care about not winning this since he got the bigger prize.

But, what exactly is this award proving? Boston has been a perennial title contender since they won in 2011.

Don Sweeny has done a good job and made some key deals, but his job was just as much about not screwing up a good thing as it was building upon his predecessor. He also has a pretty sound hockey mind in Cam Neely as team president to rely on.

Doug Armstrong has built this thing up by himself. He took over as GM when the team was still in transition mode and returned them to a place where they were at least contending. No, this is not a career award, but Armstrong has had a bigger impact on this team in my opinion.

For two straight seasons, the Blues have won the offseason with deals that were unbelievable. Armstrong managed to shed himself of albatross contracts and bring in two of the most impactful players the Blues have ever acquired since they got Brett Hull via trade.

He brought back David Perron, convinced Tyler Bozak to leave his longtime home with Toronto and managed to get Pat Maroon to take a literal hometown discount. That was all on top of figuring out a way to get Buffalo to take three struggling or unknown talents in exchange for a guy that might be in the discussion for top-five centers in the league.

Sweeney made some good deals, especially at or near the trade deadline so it is not like he is chopped liver. It just felt like somewhat of a lazy vote made by larger market media types that only looked at the number of deals, perhaps not the quality of deals. Maybe Armstrong’s odd contract decisions came back to bite him. Those are really the only main knocks against him.

In the end, what does it really matter? The Blues are the champions, so gnashing teeth about personal awards is a little fruitless.

Even so, it just had an odd feeling of that same mentality around the league about the Blues being a nice story but it was time to get back to business as usual.

Maybe it would be different if the voting was a little closer, especially in the coaching category. We will never know.

I maintain that the coaching snub is the greatest error, if only by finishing third. Give him a tight race and finish second and it is whatever. As much as I love Coop, you cannot convince me he did a better coaching job though.

Binnington should have won, but we all knew this was Pettersson’s to lose because he had a full year of stats. I guess the Blues should have known to switch to an unproven rookie in training camp.

The Armstrong one is just local bias. When you defend someone to your own local fans, he produces a fine team and then gets national snubs, it touches the nerve, but that one is the least of concern.

As mentioned, none of this matters much. In St. Louis, we are used to the players from this team or this city not getting their just due. They’ll just have to go home and cry in their Stanley Cup, which will still belong to the Blues all summer long.