St. Louis Blues Top 10 Players of the 2010 Decade

Honorable Mention

Alright, so I’m going to fudge this just a little bit. I could not settle on just 10, so here are the ones that still deserve mentioning, but were not quite part of the 10 best.

Jaroslav Halak

This one will get me killed. Jaroslav Halak was one of the most, if not the biggest, divisive goaltenders in Blues history. You were either with him or completely against him. I was with him.

He never lived up to what we hoped he would be when the team acquired him from Montreal, but that doesn’t take away from what he did do. He is third on the all-time Blues list for shutouts with 20, trailing the top spot by only five. Halak also got to 20 in four seasons, which included an injury shortened year where he only played 16 games.

Halak is top 10 in Blues history in wins, save percentage, goals allowed and shutouts. Unfortunately, he was never healthy enough to see if he could replicate his Canadiens playoff success with the Blues.

Barret Jackman

Barret Jackman got so much hate toward the end of his career that it puts a sour taste on the entire thing. However, we forget just how good he was.

Jackman’s problem was always timing. He came up in the NHL playing a certain way, even won the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year and then the rules shifted on him and he never quite adapted.

Even so, he proved to be one of the better pure defenders the Blues had. He accomplished so much away from the puck.

Several Chicago Blackhawks, as well as other players in the league, hated having to play Jackman because they knew he would be on them like glue the entire game. Despite poor puck moving skills, he kept his turnover numbers fairly low compared to others in the league.

Jackman was a leader and an example of how to play hard. We all just got caught up in the flashy stuff while he was doing the dirty work.

Kevin Shattenkirk

He has been gone long enough now that we forget, but Kevin Shattenkirk actually played the bulk of his career with the St. Louis Blues. Parts of seven seasons in St. Louis and he was very good in all of them.

Even though he never hit 50 points in one season, Shattenkirk averaged about 50 points per year in St. Louis, if you take his points per game average and do the math. He scored just over a point every other game.

His downfall for the Blues was his defensive play was never going to live up to the money he wanted. The Blues want focus on defense first and then let the offense come off that.

Shattenkirk was never a great defender, so the points were not enough on their own. Even so, he was an integral part of some of the best teams the Blues had in that decade.

Ryan O’Reilly

Ryan O’Reilly could very well go down as an all-time great St. Louis Blues player when his career ends. Plenty has to happen between now and then, including staying here the rest of his time in the NHL, but he’s off to a great start.

O’Reilly came in and automatically stated publicly that winning the Stanley Cup was the goal. He delivered with a Conn Smythe performance in the playoffs.

O’Reilly was just two goals shy of 30 and just three points shy of 80 during the 2018-19 regular season. He scored eight goals, including two game winners, and 23 points in the playoffs.

The little things he did helped the team in monumental ways. Just being professional and staying after practice to help guys like Robert Thomas on faceoffs had a huge impact.

He was a great teammate but also put up great numbers. If he had been with the team longer than just the one full season in the 2010’s, he would have made the top 10.

Jay Bouwmeester

Like Jackman, Jay Bouwmeester became an easy target for the fans’ scorn. His problem was slightly different, but he got the same reaction.

Bouwmeester’s problem was he looked like he was going to be a big addition offensively. The skill was always there, but the team asked him to focus more on the defensive side and he did just that.

The offensive numbers went way down as he never surpassed 20 points other than his first full season in St. Louis. However, his attributes were elsewhere.

His point shares would never blow you away, but the fascinating thing was they were almost 100% based on defense. That means any offensive contribution to the team from Bouwmeester, as far as the stats were concerned, sprang from his defensive play. Say what you will about the guy, but for someone to generate all their point shares on the defensive end is impressive.

If nothing else, the eye test shows how good Bouwmeester was. While fans complained about this or that when he was out there, the team was a defensive shell of itself when he was out with injury. He was an invaluable player.

Brayden Schenn

I tried really hard to include Brayden Schenn in the 10 best portion, but I had to trim him due to length of service. He still deserves mention because of his impact in a short time.

The pressure was never overwhelming, but the Blues brought Schenn in to essentially replace David Backes and Paul Stastny. Once those two were gone, the Blues had no top center and Schenn wanted to play up the middle.

He immediately rewarded the team with a 70 point season his first year here. While the numbers dropped a little after that, he has still averaged around 66 points per regular season with the Blues. In three seasons with the Blues, he is only 39 goals behind his entire total for six seasons spent in Philadelphia.

Schenn also proved to be adaptable. If the Blues need a spark, he will drop the gloves. If they need offense, he’ll do that. He can be physical, throwing 83 hits in 26 playoff games in 2019. Like O’Reilly, he’ll earn a top spot among the all-time Blues the longer he stays.

Jordan Binnington

Jordan Binnington was a name I wrestled with. I wanted to put him in the top 10. I almost left him off completely.

He could have been left off completely because he was barely on the team. He did not get his first NHL start until January of 2019, meaning he only had a few months total in the decade.

However, what he did in those few months warranted a possible inclusion in the top 10. He won the Stanley Cup for crying out loud.

While his playoff stats took a dip, Blues fans know that Binnington was a gigantic reason the Blues have rings now. His Game 7 performance against Dallas and Boston alone were remarkable enough.

He is the only rookie to win all 16 games in the playoffs ever. Not Patrick Roy. Not Martin Brouduer. Not Marc-Andre Fleury or Matt Murray. Only Binnington.

If he keeps up his pace, he’ll definitely be on the list for the 2020’s, but sneaking him into this list with under 100 games played is pretty good in its own right.

Brian Elliott

These are in no particular order as far as importance to the team or the decade, but we’ll start off with a slightly controversial name. Brian Elliott was never one of my personal favorites and I openly admit that I was on the opposite side of the goalie wars, supporting both Halak and Allen against him.

That said, you cannot argue with what he accomplished with the Blues. Despite being brought in as a backup and slightly as a reclamation project after poor years in Ottawa and Colorado, the man known as Moose flourished with the Blues.

In his first season, he played in 38 games and started 36, so he was not seeing just junk time. He went 23-10-4 and both he and Halak won the Jennings Trophy for the best goals against. In that one season he had more shutouts than the next two seasons combined.

In fact, Elliot currently sits atop the shout list for any Blues goaltender with 25. Allen is not far behind, but Elliott did it in far fewer games.

Elliott also has the best save percentage (.925) of any Blues goaltender to play 100 games or more. He only trails Jacques Plante‘s .931 overall and Plante only played a total of 69 games with the Blues.

Moose’s contribution to the Blues making it to the conference finals for the first time in 16 years cannot be denied either. He was a huge reason they beat Chicago in that opening round and posted a .921 save percentage during that entire run.

David Backes

Oh my, how history gets clouded by recent past. With the St. Louis Blues taking those next steps to glory without their former captain, plus the fact he was on Boston when the Blues won, it is easy to say the Blues made the right choice in letting David Backes go.

However, while that is true, that takes nothing away from the fact the guy put his heart into this team. We can argue all day long about his leadership style since he always said the right things in the press but nothing really changed with the team, but one man can’t change an entire locker room all the time.

What we do know is Backes was a success on the ice and an even better human off it. His charitable works with foundations such as animal rescue will be long remembered in St. Louis even when his playing days are done. However, let’s not forget his playing days.

Backes played 10 years with the Blues. Some of the best of those years were in the 2010’s decade.

He matched his career high for goals with 31 in 2010-11. Before you turn your nose up at 31 goals, realize that Jaden Schwartz and Brayden Schenn have never hit 30 goals. That same year he also set his career best with 62 points.

Backes never proved to be a spectacular playoff performer. However, it is no coincidence that his best playoff year was the season the Blues went to the conference final.

The captain had seven goals and 14 points in those 20 games. Three of those goals were game winners, he threw 93 hits in those playoffs and had 17 blocked shots and 11 takeaways. He was doing it all during that run. The team just ran out of gas.

Whether you want to give him credit or not, the fact remains Backes was captain of some of the most successful and consistent Blues teams in franchise history. Just while Backes was here, the Blues had four 100-plus point seasons and would have had a fifth if the 2012-13 season was not shortened by lockout.

Backes played more on grit than on pure talent. Whether you think that’s a positive or not is up to you, but his style fit his team more than anything.

Colton Parayko

Colton Parayko is a pretty fresh face to this list.  He only played for the Blues during four, out of his five, seasons during what we are classifying as this decade.

Nevertheless, the guy forced his way into the lineup and never looked back.

When Parayko and Joel Edmundson came to training camp in the summer of 2015, little was known about them.  Perhaps even less was expected of them.

Parayko was drafted three years prior and in the third round.  So, it was not as though fans were forming petitions to have Parayko on the roster.

He and Edmundson won jobs in training camp and the exhibition games and never gave them up.  The prevailing thought was the Blues would ride them until they made mistakes and go back to more established names.

Parayko never gave them that opportunity.  All he did his rookie season was score nine goals, three of which were on the power play, and 33 points.  He also had over 100 hits and more than 30 takeaways.

He has been a model of consistency since then.  His point totals went down the last two seasons, but his goal totals have gone up.

Parayko has 159 points in 386 career games.  He has six goals and 24 points in 57 career playoff games.  That’s not too bad for a gigantic defenseman who wasn’t expected to be providing a ton of offense right from the word go.

He skates like a forward, passes well and has the body to take out just about any forward who challenges him.  His time with the team might be brief in this decade, but like he did in his rookie year, he made too much of an impression.

TJ Oshie

This list would not be complete without one of the more popular players to wear the Bluenote during the last decade. We can debate stats or value or anything, but there is little doubt that T.J. Oshie was one of the most popular Blues in recent memory.

The truth is, regardless of where you fall on the trade of Oshie, he was a tremendous talent. His biggest issue was the team needed him to be a superstar and he was merely a star.

The way the Blues were structured, they needed him to regularly be a 60 point guy with a 70-plus point season sprinkled in. Instead, he was quite consistent overall, but more in the 50’s with the occasional 60 point year.

As far as goals, you always got double-digit goals. The only year Oshie ever missed more than 10 goals was 2012-13, when he only played 30 games. Even that year, he scored seven in 30 games, which isn’t a bad pace.

Oshie’s best season with the Blues came in 2013-14. He had 21 goals and 60 points.

Oshie has scored more goals with Washington a few times. 60 points remains his career high though.

The odd thing about Oshie was the up and down nature of his physicality. He would have over 100 hits one season and then only 77 or 90 in another.

Still, you could tell the talent was there. Oshie’s biggest national moment came while with the Blues.

Due to an odd international rule that lets a shooter go multiple times, Oshie would score four goals on six attempts against Team Russia in the 2014 Olympics. It was a moment that gained national attention.

David Poile, the general manager and architect of the U.S. squad, said the day the team was announced — Jan. 1 at the Bridgestone 2014 NHL Winter Classic in Michigan Stadium — that Oshie’s shootout prowess was one of the deciding factors for including him on the roster. – Corey Masisak, NHL.com

Unfortunately, Oshie’s time ended due to the team tanking in the first round of the playoffs after winning the division. Oshie was not necessarily the main problem, or even a big problem, but he was the one that Doug Armstrong chose to shake up the locker room.

Regardless, Oshie was still one of the best players the Blues had during the 2010’s.

Jake Allen

There are plenty of fans that refuse to give any kind of credit to Jake Allen. He has benefited from having good teams in front of him, but was also the main cause for the Blues not getting far enough.

That’s a bunch of bull. However, it becomes impossible to change the narrative once enough people have bought in. It doesn’t help that the goaltender is always the easiest person to blame.

Regardless of all that nonsense, Allen is one of the best goaltenders the Blues have ever had, last decade or not. The proof is in the pudding.

You don’t win games based on the team in front of you alone. A great team helps a lot – just ask Chris Osgood – but you still have to have the talent to win a game on your own.

Allen has won a lot of games. In fact, if not for the Blues ridding Jordan Binnington a little too much and the season ending due to a pandemic, Allen might have taken over the top spot for wins all time in Blues history. He is currently in second place behind Mike Liut.

You don’t get 148 wins based on luck alone. We can argue whether Allen could have ever led a team by himself, but that’s not really the era we play in anymore anyway.

Allen did hit a major roadblock from 2017 through the end of calendar 2018. Even so, he found a way to be effective.

Allen had three shutouts in 2018-19 and regularly had four or more prior to that. His career best was six shutouts, which came in 2015-16.

If not for an injury, Allen might have been the goaltender that helped the Blues reach the Western Conference Final that season. His detractors will say the Blues would not have made it that far with him, but we will never know. I believe they would have.

In 2016-17, Allen was the only reason the Blues advanced past the first round. He beat the Minnesota Wild almost single-handedly that season.

Allen’s status with Blues fans will always be divisive. However, proving to be one of the winningest goaltenders in team history makes him one of the best of his decade for sure.

Alexander Steen

I debated this one in my own head, meaning just as many fans will likely be on one side or another regarding Alex Steen. He is one of the longest tenured Blues in recent memory and has given a lot to the team and the city.

His role in possibly dividing the locker room and planting seeds that ended Ken Hitchcock’s tenure with the team remain a sticking point. There is no proof of that, but merely hearsay and rumor. Still, it just got to the point where there had to be fire due to so much smoke.

Nevertheless, Steen was a good player on the ice. In fact, it is easy to forget how good he was because of the more defensive role he adopted in the last few seasons.

In his first full season with the Blues, coming from Toronto, he set a personal record for goals and points. He would lead the team in scoring in 2013-14.

That season he had 33 goals and 64 points. Unfortunately for Steen, it took him until age 29 to hit his best. Father time is unrelenting and age seemed to set in with each progressing season as far as scoring production.

Even so, there is little doubt that Steen was good in the locker room. Rumors swirl about potential arguments over the captaincy, but Steen found a way to lead by example.

Even when things were going poorly, you could not really accuse him of loafing on the ice. Perhaps the goals were not there the way you wanted, but he was putting in the effort.

It can’t be discounted how big it was for him to put his ego aside during the 2018-19 season as well. Steen could have easily rocked the boat, touted his time of service and said he would not play on the fourth line.

Instead, he was a team player and bought into Craig Berube‘s plan. Steen was so effective on the fourth line that you have to say he was an integral part of that Stanley Cup winning team.

He was definitely a divisive figure at times, but Steen was still one of the best to wear that sweater during the decade.

Jaden Schwartz

One of the biggest arguments about Jaden Schwartz is his production. Most of that is based on an idea of what we thought he would be.

He is one of those players that you can see the ability to get to certain numbers, but he just doesn’t. Schwartz has the talent to be a 30 goal scorer, but he hasn’t made it there. His highest total is 28 goals.

If you take that preconception away, however, there is little arguing against him being a good player and one of the team’s best in the last decade. When healthy, he has only failed to score 50 points or more once.

That was in 2018-19, when he only had 11 goals and 36 points in 69 games. Even then, he was banged up and just never got himself right. He did contribute in other ways though.

Schwartz has usually been a good playoff performer too. Even before the Stanley Cup run, he was putting up decent numbers when the Blues made deep runs.

Then, there was the 2019 playoffs. Schwartz was a legitimate Conn Smythe contender.

He ended the playoffs with 12 goals and 20 points in 26 games. He finished the playoffs with two different hat tricks as well.

Schwartz is just one of those guys that sneakily adds up all his stats. He doesn’t do it with panache or flair, he just gets a goal or assist and gets back to work.

Schwartz is now what Steen used to be. He’s become a much better defensive player, which will make him more valuable as he ages.

Schwartz just seems to always go. Even when he’s not scoring, you rarely can say anything about the guy’s work ethic.

The Blues had other guys like that in the 2010’s, but Schwartz had the ability on top of it.

David Perron

There are very few players in the NHL that can say they have been on one team three different times. David Perron is one of those players.

He began his Blues career in the previous decade. He scored 50 points in his second year in the NHL and had 20 goals in his third. Most fans were excited.

Unfortunately, the 2010’s didn’t start quite as well. Due to concussions, Perron only played in 10 games in 2010-11 and only 57 games the following year.

Perron did have 42 points in that 57 games, but followed it up with just 25 points in 48 games in the lockout season. The Blues were looking to shake things up and Perron was sent packing to Edmonton.

He seemed to play well, out of spite, for the Oilers, but he found himself in Pittsburgh. The Blues picked him up as a free agent and scored 46 points in 2016-17.

St. Louis exposed him to Vegas in the expansion draft and he exploded for 66 points. The Blues then re-acquired him.

In the last two seasons, since coming back to St. Louis, Perron has combined for 48 goals and 106 points. Not bad for a guy that some questioned bringing back, including myself.

Perron’s first stint with the Blues was a playoff disappointment. However, he flourished under Craig Berube to the tune of seven goals and 16 points on the way to the Stanley Cup.

Perron is one of those guys you cannot judge purely on numbers. His evolution as a player has occurred right before our eyes.

When the Blues first traded him, even if you were upset, you could understand. He has made himself more valuable each time he returned.

Most players don’t get that opportunity. If they bounce around, they start wearing down or just keep moving to another team.

Perron got the rare chance to prove he had grown as a player and person and the Blues were the beneficiaries.

Alex Pietrangelo

What more can you say about Alex Pietrangelo? He’s the only captain in St. Louis Blues history to have brought a Stanley Cup back to the Gateway City.

That alone makes him one of the best players to ever wear the sweater, let alone just in the past decade. However, it is not just a token inclusion.

Pietrangelo really was one of the better players for the Blues, with or without the Cup. The Cup just puts you over the top.

Pietrangelo came in just slightly after guys like Backes, Oshie and Perron, but he was still part of that group. In defense to all of them, they were expected to do too much without any veteran leadership to help them along the way.

Pietrangelo did not have the benefit of learning from a guy like Chris Pronger the way Colton Parayko is learning from Petro. He did it all on the fly.

Pietrangelo has played in 12 seasons overall, nine of which could be considered full seasons. He has only failed to reach 50 or more points in three of those seasons, one of which was his rookie year. He still got 43 points that year.

The only season Pietrangelo ever dropped below 40 points was 2015-16 when he had 36. He still managed 24 points in 47 games in the lockout season.

He’s done all that without being considered an offensive defender. That will likely hold him back from ever winning a Norris Trophy, but it proves he is a more complete player.

Without scoring a ton of goals or being a power play specialist, Petro still gets his numbers. He doesn’t sacrifice defensively like some guys do, either.

2019-20 was the first full season Pietrangelo ever had fewer than 100 blocked shots. His defense has gotten better as he has gone through his career, not that it was ever bad. He is a player that has grown wiser with years, relying less on physical traits and more on intelligence and positioning when playing against some of the league’s elites.

Not coincidentally, the two times the Blues have gone the farthest in the playoffs during Pietrangelo’s time were the years he did the most. In the trip to the Western Conference Final in 2015-16 and the Stanley Cup run, Petro had five goals and 39 points.

He also combined for 47 hits and 106 blocked shots. Not too bad for 46 games.

How Pietrangelo’s contract works out at the end of 2020 will solidify or change a lot of fans opinions on the captain. That is fair, but we should never forget that he was one of the best during the 2010’s.

Vladimir Tarasenko

Like Jaden Schwartz, Blues fans have a hard time distinguishing Vladimir Tarasenko’s actual accomplishments from what we think he can do. Hype is a powerful thing.

Coming into the league and showing some goal-scoring prowess off the bat, the comparisons were immediately made to Brett Hull. There is little doubt that Tarasenko is the team’s first, true sniper since Hull, but it was never fair to make the comparison. They are two different players with two different styles and personalities.

Even without the comparison, we continually want more from Tarasenko. Somehow, collectively, we all just sense he can be a 50 goal scorer if he would just be a little more selfish at times or a little more assertive.

However, despite some detractors saying he has not lived up to expectations, you will not find a more consistent scorer outside of Alex Ovechkin. Tarasenko is rarely at the top of the league in scoring, but most guys have a great year and then fall off the next.

Vlady just gets it done. It took a season-ending injury to prevent Tarasenko from getting 30-plus goals for the sixth consecutive year.

Just think about that. Of all the prolific scorers in the NHL, nobody other than Ovechkin was showing that kind of goal-scoring consistency.

Unlike some big time goal scorers, Tarasenko picks up a lot of assists too. Often times, you’ll see a guy with 30 or 40 goals and something in the realm of 20-plus assists.

Tarasenko had 30-plus assists ever season he had 30-plus goals. He’s remarkable at generating offense, even if we’d like more numbers in the G column.

Tarasenko’s only drawback has been his personality and that’s not a knock on him. In North America, we’ve grown accustomed to our superstars having a certain attitude about them. Tarasenko doesn’t really have that, at least not openly.

He would honestly rather win 82 games and pick up 82 assists rather than score 82 goals and win 40 games.

Still, even after eight seasons, we focus too much on what we want from him instead of what he is. Would we all like to see him be a 50 goal scorer? There is no doubt.

The NHL is just different now, though. Yes, there are still 50 goal scorers and guys that reach 100 points, but it’s not as prevalent as it used to be.

Having a guy that will consistently score 30-plus goals and have 60-70 points is invaluable.

We should not take that for granted. If we do, Tarasenko might be one of those guys we look back on later and realize how great he actually was. Instead, enjoy one of the best scorers of the last decade right now, while he’s here.