St. Louis Blues: The Reason Niko Mikkola Wasn’t Given A Shot

The St. Louis Blues had a defenseman sitting in their press box ready to go at a moment’s notice. However, instead of giving him one more look, they jumped into the trade market and brought in an outsider.

The St. Louis Blues made a smart move by picking up Marco Scandella. If the team was going to make a trade, they needed to look for more defense instead of scoring.

Everyone wants a forward because everyone thinks goals are so important. You do have to score to win, but ask the Tampa Bay Lightning how having a bunch of scorers worked for them in 2019-20.

Regardless of that, Scandella gives the team more depth and experience. It is that last word that is the very reason why Niko Mikkola was not given a shot to stay on this team – experience.

The argument against that is you have to get experience to have experience. Try arguing that in today’s job market though, even outside of sports.

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The problem is not Mikkola as a player, but the ever present old-school mentality that you need experience in the playoffs. That is partly true, but not something that cannot be circumvented.

The Blues gave Robert Thomas an opportunity to play once the playoffs began. His minutes were somewhat limited, but he did not do too bad with six points in 21 games, considering he had never gone through the Stanley Cup grind in his life.

The main difference is that Thomas basically played the entire season with the Blues. He earned his spot right out of camp, never let the team even think of sending him to the AHL and played in 70 games.

That is not the situation that Mikkola would have had. Mikkola played well in the five games he had with the Blues in 2020.

He played in just over 14 minutes per game. He averaged close to three shots per game, which is not bad for a guy that is not an offensive defenseman.

He had a hit per game average and while he did not record a takeaway, he only turned the puck over once. Those aren’t bad numbers, but there was not enough going on there to demand the Blues keep him on the roster.

It is far easier for a forward to showcase their skills enough for a team to have no other option but to keep them on a roaster. Defensemen are often relegated to doing things that the average fan cannot see and even coaching staffs can be overly picky about.

So, we circle back to that old word, experience. Mikkola can’t get any because he has not earned any through trust with the organization.

We can say that is not fair, but the Blues don’t want to roll the dice at this stage. They would prefer someone who knows how to dig into the trenches for every shift during the playoffs instead of a player in Mikkola who might shine or might be a deer in the headlights come playoff time.

The unknown is a scary thing when it comes to defenders. That is especially true when the team has not been playing defense particularly well, even when they had a full compliment of healthy players.

Thus, a player was brought in from the outside because the powers that be for the Blues believe Scandella is a better defensive option at this point. That does not mean they think Scandella is a better player overall, but the Blues were just not ready to ride into the playoffs with a defensive pairing that might have featured a defenseman with less than 10 games in his NHL career.

Personally, I would have been fine with Mikkola getting a shot. However, the timing and the circumstances of everything going on had as much a part to play with this as anything.

If Jay Bouwmeester doesn’t have a freak health scare, we aren’t even talking about this and Scandella is still in Montreal or going to some other team. Mikkola would not have been brought back up at all from the AHL and would have had a chance for a fresh look in next year’s training camp.

The reality of the situation we are in is that Bouwmeester did have a cardiac event, despite being one of the fittest players on the team. The Blues had confidence in Mikkola to give him a look when someone was hurt for a game or two, but they were not ready to let him fly just yet.

Whether you agree with Armstrong or not, at least it can be understood where he is coming from. His point, made during his press conference after the trade, was the team was comfortable with their six defensemen and also Mikkola as the seventh. However, they were not prepared to have to have Mikkola plus another untested defenseman on the roster if anyone else got hurt down the stretch. As Army put it, they can weather one injury but it’s more about what you do if you have the second or third guy injured.

The Finnish defender will probably get a look next season, with Bouwmeester likely done and Scandella up in the air as a free agent. For now, based on the roster rules and experience, Mikkola gets put back on the San Antonio shuttle.