St. Louis Blues Ville Husso Doesn’t Get A Soft Opening

The St. Louis Blues took a chance when they split up their goaltending tandem of the last two seasons. Now, the goalie of the future has to show up today.

Nobody faulted the St. Louis Blues when they traded Jake Allen to free up salary cap space. The only real complaint was from Allen fans, in that he was not traded to a team he could start for.

Regardless of that, the deal made sense. The Blues had Ville Husso under a one-way contract, so he needed to be given an opportunity, and they needed to create some cap space in an attempt to keep Alex Pietrangelo.

You cannot make moves based on the worst-case scenario. However, now that the Blues do not have Pietrangelo, it does beg the question of if they would rather have Allen back given everything that has transpired.

As pointed out on Rivs and BK on 101 ESPN, Allen might have solved some interesting problems. As it stands now, the Blues are $1 million and change over the salary cap.

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If they placed Alex Steen on LTIR and still had Allen, that would basically even out their money. Of course, that brings up the entire problem with Steen at the moment, but that’s a different argument.

Allen would also have been a security net. While he gained plenty of detractors during his time in St. Louis, he was a steady force.

Even as a backup, he basically guaranteed you 15-20 wins. It made sense to make the deal, but now Husso has to hit the ground running.

For those that have worked in retail or restaurants, they know that a soft opening is when the business opens somewhat unannounced, so that people can come in and the workers can iron out the kinks before the grand opening. Husso will not have that luxury.

St. Louis needs Husso to be as good as they hope he will be. No offense to Jon Gillies, but if Jordan Binnington got hurt, or if Husso starts the season more like Chad Johnson rather than Allen, the Blues are in deep trouble.

They don’t have someone they absolutely know they can rely on at the moment. That does not mean Husso is not that guy or might even be the next starter, but he is a complete unknown at this point.

We know what the franchise thinks of him. Prior to Binnington’s unexpected jump to Stanley Cup champion, Husso was technically the second goaltender on the depth chart.

The talent is there. The worrying thing is his stats have not wowed anyone to the point where the masses were demanding him get this shot. He’s only won more than 15 games once as a professional and he was under .500 that year too. The Blues minor league system is not that great at the moment, so that doesn’t help, but it still adds question marks.

The other worrying thing is Binnington’s 2020 playoffs. There is a strong likelihood it was just a blip and he’ll rebound, but we’ve seen other championship goaltenders stagnate and find their way on the outs – just ask the last two Cup winners in Pittsburgh.

When Allen was here, you knew you had a goaltender that could carry the load if Binnington got hurt or didn’t seem right. With Husso, it’s kind of like the St. Louis Cardinals outfield. You have to let him show you what he’s got, but it’s a 50/50 proposition at this point.

As an analyst, I believe Husso will be up to the task and the Blues will be fine. As a fan, the unknown is worrying and it feels like the Blues are walking the rope without a net.