St. Louis Blues Fans Can’t Overreact To Robby Fabbri Start

The St. Louis Blues made a simple hockey trade, looking to improve their team while giving an unused player a fresh start. Of course, as soon as that player has any success, we return to the days of fans screaming what were they thinking.

When the St. Louis Blues initially traded Robby Fabbri, everything was all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Everyone was wishing him well and good success, etc.

Funny how when that success comes, the tune changes. That is not to say anyone is upset at Fabbri – far from it. However, the tune changed with regard to the trade itself in a matter of moments.

For those unaware, Fabbri managed to score two goals in his debut with the Detroit Red Wings. Not only did he score two goals, but both were power play goals and against the Boston Bruins, aka a top-five penalty kill in the NHL.

His second goal proved to be the game winner. He was named the number one star for the night.

Of course, social media reacted as social media will. The Blues gave up on him too soon or the Blues could have used that kind of offense on their power play and all sorts of rubbish.

The problem with that thinking is to think situation A happens in situation B, no matter the different circumstances. What is amusing is people will accept with ease the idea that if you change one small thing in the past during theoretical time travel, everything will change but do not apply the same principles to the real world. You cannot assume that Fabbri was going to score two goals in his next game regardless of who he suited up for.

It is a bad look when Fabbri tears it up when given a look in Detroit and the Blues are suddenly without two of their top forwards. The timing is bad, but it still does not mean Fabbri was going to get a look with the Blues in a top-six role.

Despite evidence to the contrary with the defensive pairs, for the most part, the Blues are about continuity. That it why Jacob de la Rose will slot into the third line instead of taking a spot on the fourth line and moving someone like Oskar Sundqvist up. The Blues do not want to continually alter their lines when things are working overall.

More from Editorials

• St. Louis Blues Need Kasperi Kapanen To Be On Best Behavior
• Hayes’ Debut And Other Bold Predictions for the St. Louis Blues
• St. Louis Blues Captaincy Is Suddenly A Huge Problem For 2023-24
• St. Louis Blues National Games Cause More Problems Than They’re Worth
• St. Louis Blues Brayden Schenn Has To Be An Impact Player In 2023-24

There will be those that ask why Zach Sanford continues to be in the lineup, and on the second line, despite little to no production. The answer is because he still plays the way Craig Berube wants him to play. Fabbri did not.

The Blues are not the smash-mouth team they tried to be back when David Backes was here. They are certainly not a punishing behemoth like the New Jersey Devils were in the 1990’s.

However, they still play a heavy style that is predicated on getting on the forecheck. Fabbri would try his best, but he just was not built to play that kind of style.

Another thing people forget is that different coaches ask different things. Look at David Perron.

The very first time the Blues traded him away was mainly because he was not playing the 200-foot game that Ken Hitchcock wanted. He went to Edmonton and immediately set a career high for goals and fans were outraged.

The issue was never talent. It was a player not doing or not being able to do what a coach asked of him.

Perron was not asked to take up defensive responsibilities in Edmonton and was free to utilize his offensive talents. Something similar was true in Vegas, where Perron set a career high in points.

It is not as though Perron magically cannot put up 60-plus points when in a Blues uniform. He is asked to do other things besides scoring.

Players have different roles on different teams. Fabbri was given time on the power play and put in a second-line role with the Red Wings. Detroit is also a team in the middle of a rebuild, so they are looking for scoring and willing to let some of the smaller details slide for now.

The Blues are not in that position. They win because of how they play, not who plays. If Berube is demanding a certain style from all his players, even top line guys, and Fabbri can’t do that then he was not going to play.

Trying to force him into a fourth line role was not fair to the team or the player. If people want to focus on the Sanford situation, you can still boil it down to minutes. Even playing predominantly on the second line, Sanford is only averaging 11-plus minutes a game.

Fabbri got over 13 minutes with Detroit. Those extra two minutes of ice time can make a world of difference to an offensive player and he was simply not going to have that spot available due to the depth on the Blues.

Fabbri had simply fallen too far behind on the depth chart. He was not playing even when the team had back-to-backs and some analysts think he would have not even made the team out of training camp if Jordan Kyrou had been healthy. As it is, it is looking like the Blues are wanting to bring Kyrou up sooner rather than later once he gets his conditioning in down in San Antonio.

The detractors still fall back to the age-old “they never gave him a chance” thing. The Blues have given lots of players lots of chances. Some made the most of it and some have not. Success elsewhere does not change the fact it was not working here.

Ty Rattie is a perfect example. Social media warriors were always harping on the Blues not giving Rattie a proper look, as though other people’s jobs were not on the line and you can just leave a person in the lineup if they are doing nothing to help your team. It was always Hitchcock blocking his path instead of Rattie not doing something.

Rattie has still not accomplished much away from the Blues. In 2018-19, he played in 50 games with Edmonton and scored four goals. That was actually one goal less than he scored in 14 games with the Oilers the season prior.

On the flip side, we have seen guys come up from the AHL and go on a small tear. Brad Hunt scored a goal and three assists in his first four games with the Blues back in 2016-17.

No matter how many games he has played with a team in the NHL, Hunt has not scored more than five goals. Some will point out that he has five goals through 17 games with the Minnesota Wild, but this circles back to the original point.

Hunt is playing in a top-six role for a team tied for last place in the NHL as of November 9. One of the teams the Hunt’s Wild are tied with at the bottom is Fabbri’s Red Wings.

It is great that Fabbri scored. It is good that he is having personal success in his new environment.

As Blues fans, let us all take a step back and breathe.

Sometimes new circumstances can improve a player. T.J. Oshie was a very good player with the Blues, but thrived in Washington because he had one of the game’s best players taking pressure off him. That does not mean Oshie would have scored at the same pace if he stayed in St. Louis.

The same is true with Fabbri. We cannot simply assume he would have fit in on the power play and scored two goals if the Blues played him against Edmonton or in their next game against Calgary.

If you personally liked Fabbri and simply wanted him on the team, that is fine. However, for those that think this is Berube standing in someone’s way or Doug Armstrong giving up on a player, it simply is not true.

St. Louis’ situation is simply different than Detroit’s. Fabbri, if healthy is almost surely going to be a better player than de la Rose.

Herb Brooks did not select four lines of the best players he could find when he constructed the Miracle on Ice team. He picked the players that would play his style the best. Berube is in that same mold and, unfortunately, Fabbri was simply a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

That does not mean the peg is bad. It just means the fit is not right and would not have been no matter how you try to jam it in there.