St. Louis Blues: Mackenzie MacEachern Is In A Precarious Situation

The St. Louis Blues have an abundance of forward depth on the roster, which might force the Blues to make a difficult choice with Mackenzie MacEachern.

25-year-old forward Mackenzie MacEachern came out of nowhere to earn a spot on the St. Louis Blues roster midway through the 2018-19 season and was eventually awarded a one-way contract extension.

The extension was well deserved for MacEachern, who spent the beginning of the year with the Blues’ AHL affiliate San Antonio Rampage.

St. Louis called up MacEachern right around the time they started to turn their season around. The former third-round pick made his NHL debut on January 1 against the Montreal Canadiens and notched three hits in seven shifts.

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MacEachern does not have sexy numbers under his belt as an NHL forward, and what he brings to the table is not 20 goals a year potential.

Instead, MacEachern made his presence felt using his 6-2 190lb frame. While the youngster was able to find his creative groove offensively occasionally, the Blues know they don’t need to be relying on him to carry the scoring load when the well has gone dry.

The Michigan native registered just three goals but was also able to add five assists in his first stint with an NHL team. The best comparison that I can think of is what Ryan Reaves is able to do.

Put aside Reaves’ recent offensive outburst, he has historically been a physical grinding player who occasionally was able to put one or two pucks in the back of the net if he got lucky.

This isn’t to say that MacEachern will never reach even 10 or 15 goals in a season, but based off his play from a year ago, it doesn’t seem like the 15 goal feat is within reach this season.

Looking ahead to where he might fit on the roster is hard to do. The Blues giving him a one-way contract extension in the middle of last season was well earned, but still seemed like an oversight.

The deal almost guarantees a spot on the roster for MacEachern to begin the 2019-20 season. However, as much good this does for the former Michigan State Spartan, it means he won’t see much ice time.

The only way I see MacEachern fitting in the starting lineup on this Blues team is if he is inserted into the fourth line. St. Louis’ fourth line currently has Alex Steen, Ivan Barbashev, and Oskar Sundqvist on it and outside of an injury, it’s probably not changing anytime soon.

So this leaves MacEachern to sit on the bench with possibly Robby Fabbri and Derrick Pouliot. Is this best thing for MacEachern’s career? He’s not necessarily a young player at 25 years old, but he might benefit from full-time play in San Antonio.

As much good comes from sitting and watching the best in the world prepare for games, the more time you stay out of the lineup, the more risk you gain by keeping yourself off the ice.

Now, if the Blues had given MacEachern a two-way deal, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We would be saying that if he plays well in the preseason, then he can sit on the bench to start the year and see what happens.

We can still say these things about MacEachern, but his true value lies in being able to plug in for a big physical body like Zach Sanford or Sammy Blais if one of them gets hurt during the year.

MacEachern sitting on the bench for 60 games this season won’t do anyone any good, not to mention he may be blocking some young stars in the making like Jordan Kyrou or Klim Kostin.