St. Louis Blues: Craig Berube, The Blues Whisperer

The St. Louis Blues have exactly the perfect coach to teach, implement, and enforce Blues hockey in Craig Berube. We all know about the run to the Cup and his prominence in turning that team around, but let’s really dive in and see what he’s been able to achieve in a short time here as head coach.

In the short time that Craig Berube has been the head coach of the St. Louis Blues, we have witnessed a deflated, confidence lost, and emotionally drained team go from dead last into Stanley Cup Champions. We now see a team that, after any sort of setback or unlucky bounce, comes right back and tenaciously trounces the opposition.

We saw it again and again last season. The handpass in the playoffs. Getting thumped 7-2 in Game 3 of the Cup final. Those are just two of the biggest ones.

None of this would have been possible if the Blues Whisperer didn’t have the pulse and temperature of this team. Chief, as Craig Berube is nicknamed, has probably the toughest stretch of his short coaching career ahead of him.

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It was announced on Monday, October 28th that the Blues sniper, Vladimir Tarasenko would be out for at least five months.

Pull any sniper from any roster and the job of filling in for the minutes alone is a challenge, let alone one of Tarasenko’s caliber. Only him and arguably the greatest goal scorer of all time have amassed the consistency the two of them have.

Craig Berube, Chief, The Blues Whisperer no doubt will need to use his powers and influence to catapult the next man up. Not that it’ll be too difficult.  I truly believe the Blues have the solution in house with talented young players like Robert Thomas, Klim Kostin, and Jordan Kyrou.

The real question this season is can the Chief keep the players focused on the little things to win games? It seemed as though, in the early going, the team was trying to win on talent alone. They seemed to be less focused on the things that drove them to the first franchise Cup win in history.

In the three to four games prior to Vladi’s injury, Berube appeared to be up to his whispering again, moving Steen up the lineup and pulling the top line aside for a meeting with the coach. The Blues came out of that and looked every bit the champions we saw last season.

Tarasenko was starting to turn it on, the first line was controlling play, the defense was smothering and the puck possession was starting to gel. The neutral zone was a no man’s land for the opposition during most of those games and things looked bright!

Down went Tarasenko and the Blues didn’t unravel, but you could start to feel the void a little. With everyone tentatively awaiting the news on Vladi’s status, you could sense the team was tentative too.

Well, Chief and the team know the situation now and it looks like the Chief will have to do what he does best. He will push and prod some players to get the best out of them at every opportunity and when that player seems to tire or regress from the motivational whisper Chief will have another guy waiting in the wings, teeth gnarled and drooling to get into the action.

So far as head coach, every move Craig Berube has made has turned to gold. He’s going to need to churn some more gold all season to get this team to the playoffs again and to keep them focused.

I’m not suggesting the likes of Ryan O’Reilly, Brayden Schenn, Alex Pietrangelo, David Perron, or Alex Steen will need focus.  But, it is the younger guys that Berube seemed to work magic with all season last season.

The man would bench and insert the young guys in a fashion that kept them hungry. When he saw their game dip a little he sat them for the next guy and the next guy would come in and make an impact.

Examples of those kinds of guys are Sammy Blais, Zach Sanford, and Robert Fabbri to a degree in the playoffs. Berube did it with Robert Thomas, as well, moving him from the fourth line to the third, to the second, down to the fourth and finally when he saw Thomas playing the game the way Chief wants he kept him on the third and watched him begin to blossom.

Now the Blues Whisperer has a larger hole to fill and I’m confident that he will get it done. Unlike his predecessor, Mike Yeo-Yo, Berube has an uncanny ability to get his players to not only play the way they need to, but he earns their respect and buy-in like no other coach I’ve seen except.

The only guy that comes close is what Barry Trotz has done in New York with the Islanders. I’m not saying Berube should be held in the same regard as Trotz, so relax, but the effectiveness of what Berube has and will need to continue to do is second to none.

So now there is 20 minutes of ice up for grabs – important, meaningful, and a very productive 20 minutes. The Blues Whisperer will need to push and prod, and generate Vladi like results from a group of young guns who are all gnashing their teeth, waiting to get in the game for some meaningful minutes.

Tarasenko going down is a challenge for anyone to replace. Irreplaceable really, but if anyone can get more from the sum of their parts it the Blues Whisperer Craig Berube. I’m excited to see what the coach does with this opportunity.

Early chatter is suggesting Nathan Walker will get the call-up. I hope the Blues take the chance to get Klim Kostin up here at least for a little while. Walker has some NHL experience and is at or near the top of the AHL in points right now so that wouldn’t surprise me even though I know most fans have zero interest in Walker getting the call-up. Whisper away Chief!

Drop the puck!