St. Louis Blues history is littered with a bunch of what if scenarios. Plenty of them involve deals that were made and maybe shouldn't have been and some with deals that could have been and never were.
What if Kevin Shattenkirk accepted the trade to Edmonton and the Blues got Taylor Hall? What if he didn't nix a trade to Tampa Bay?
What if the Blues never got into a contract squabble with Adam Oates? What happens if the Blues keep Geoff Courtnall, Robert Dirk, Sergio Momesso and Cliff Ronning instead of trading for Garth Butcher?
Possibly the biggest what if of all time is what might have gone down if the Blues smoothed things over with Wayne Gretzky and got rid of Mike Keenan instead. However, as big as that one was, there is one what if that truly could make fans ill - what if the Blues acquired Brendan Shanahan and never lost Scott Stevens?
For fans that did not experience that era of the NHL, you may ask why that's such a big deal. While everyone has their own opinions, Scott Stevens is one of the best defensive defensemen of all time in my judgement. At the very least he's one of the best defensive defenders of the modern era.
For background, what happened was the Blues signed Stevens in the summer of 1990 and immediately made him captain. They had one of the league's best goal scorers in Brett Hull, acquired in 1988, one of the best centers in Oates and one of the best defenders in Stevens.
General Manager Ron Caron had already upset most of the league with the contract he gave Stevens and then pushed the boundary too far when he went after Brendan Shanahan before the free agency period had officially begun. Originally, we were told the Devils were out for blood and simply took Stevens out of spite and the rest was history.
However, a story recently told by Randy Karraker, shines a different light on it. According to the longtime St. Louis radio host, there was definitely a scenario where Stevens never leaves and the Blues managed to bungle it.
Karraker tells the story that he called the arbitration judge in November of 1991 after the player swap happened in August of '91. What was already known was the Blues offered Rod Brind'Amour and Curtis Joseph as compensation.
Given the players they became, most teams would take that offer. However, Lou Lamoriello had no interest in CuJo since he already had Martin Brodeur in the pipeline. The Devils' GM wanted defense as compensation and went after Stevens.
What comes next in the story is where the blood will boil and the stomach will turn. Karraker asked the judge directly - what if the Blues offered Paul Cavallini?
The judge responded that he thought that is what the Blues would have countered with. That was the logical choice for compensation for what was, at the time, a relatively unknown commodity in Shanahan. The judge told Karraker that he absolutely would have sided with the Blues if they had included Cavallini as part of the compensation.
While it would have stunk to lose Brind'Amour in that moment, the Blues ended up trading the forward in September of 1991 anyway. The compensation was Murray Baron and Ron Sutter.
However, if you have Stevens, there's no need to pick up Baron. Sutter was a marginal player at best.
The more you analyze what happened just prior to the 1991 season, the more it really set the franchise back and may have wasted all the years of Brett Hull's career here. Just think what happens if the Blues either take a lawyer to the arbitration hearing, which they didn't, or at least have the sense to offer a different defenseman.
If St. Louis had any sense at the time, they could have had a franchise altering lineup. Just imagine the possiblities.
Imagine having Shanahan, Oates and Hull as your top line. You've got a young Nelson Emerson, who put up 59 points in the 1991-92 season.
Imagine having the open-ice terror that was Scott Sevens guarding the blue line. You'd have a 27-year old Stevens with a 24-year old Jeff Brown. Maybe the Blues still acquire Al MacInnis a couple seasons later too, but even if not, I'd take my chances with one of the top point scoring defenders in Brown and a guy like Stevens who learned his value as a crushing defender once he took the foot off the gas as an offensive player.
Pair all that with an in his prime Curtis Joseph. While everyone in St. Louis loves Butcher, just imagine still having Stevens, Hull, Oates, Shanahan, Geoff Courtnall, Cliff Ronning and Sergio Momesso.
Those last three were integral parts of a team that helped the Vancouver Canucks get to the 1994 Stanley Cup Final. Stevens was the captain of three Stanley Cup championship teams. Hull and Shanahan won Cups too. None of them won in St. Louis.
All this happened because nobody thought to even mention Paul Cavallini's name when the Devils said they wanted a defenseman. Cavallini was a bit of a fan favorite, but he was gone by 1993 when he was traded for Kevin Miller, who only lasted two seasons in St. Louis with years of 46 and 48 points.
Instead of the awful turnstile roster we endured during those years, we could have had one of the defensive greats on the team for his entire remaining career. Maybe the Blues win in 1995 instead of New Jersey. The Blues went 28-15-5 in that lockout shortened season, but lost to a .500 Vancouver team. You can't tell me Stevens doesn't help you win a Game 7 and maybe go farther.
Fans of the time loved Caron for his personality and his wheeling-dealing ways. I bear no ill will towards the man, but as a general manager, his constant car-salesman way of thinking ruined several teams that could have otherwise been legitimate threats.
This bungle set off a chain of events the Blues never recovered from. I'm not saying this arbitration was the direct cause, but it was the first domino to fall.
You lose Stevens in this when Cavallini would have been acceptable compensation. You end up trading Cavallini anyway for a player that didn't last. You trade Brind'Amour anyway, even after keeping him in arbitration to get Baron. The Blues don't need Baron if they have Stevens.
St. Louis lost Oates the same season. Instead of having one of the top centers, right wingers and defenders in the game, we watched it all dissolve to where only the winger remained, the defense was porous to where CuJo got peppered most nights and we had to hope Hull and Shanahan would outscore everyone.
Do the Blues win a Cup if they keep Gretzky? Maybe. Do they speed up the re-tool if Shattenkirk just accepts one of those trades? Possibly.
Do they win a Cup with Hull, Oates, Stevens and either CuJo or Grant Fuhr? Almost definitely in my opinion.
Of course, the ancillary pieces make up the rest of the pie, but if you don't make that horrible trade to acquire Butcher and you never lose Stevens, that is a team that makes it to a conference final at the very least.
As it was, it wasn't until 2016 that the Blues reached the conference final again. It really boggles the mind how one foolish action by the franchise cost them a Hall of Fame player who surely would have his number retired in Enterprise Center.
He was only here for one season, but just imagine Scott Stevens retiring as a Blue. That might be the biggest what if any of us will ever know.
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