St Louis Blues

The Blues made a splash last season by coming out of nowhere to steal the Central Division crown. But, unlike last season, the Blues are expected to be the champs again.

In the current free agency, the Blues have done everything they have needed to do. They signed all of their young core to contract extensions, they baited Vladimir Tarasenko to come to the NHL and they extended Ken Hitchcock's contract for a few more years.

Despite losing a couple of players and not adding a top-four defenseman—just minor blips on the team's overall radar—the Blues look like the same team they were last year.

Except they are not.

Each player on the Blues gained valuable knowledge of what it felt like to have targets on their backs. They felt the pressure of what it was like to be the best. This season, they are expected to be the best and perform like the best, and they have become accustomed to those conditions. 

And while the Blues have gotten better in the offseason, the other teams in the Central have taken some hits. 

Nashville may have been hit the hardest out of all of the Central teams. The Predators lost Ryan Suter to the Minnesota Wild and had to sign a 14-year, $110 million contract extension to get their captain Shea Weber to stay. The team nearly went into a massive rebuilding stage just one season after its best on-ice success, and it took a massive contract to keep it from happening. The Predators are going to have a tough time putting together a good team over the next few seasons with so much money tied into Weber and Pekke Rinne.

Columbus filled a big hole by signing Sergei Bobrovsky on draft day. But, in a huge deal, the Blue Jackets sent Rick Nash to the Rangers for Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Tim Erixon and a first-round pick. While Columbus does add some pieces to its lineup, ultimately this deal was a huge letdown for the Jackets. 

The Blue Jackets could have went after pieces like Marc Staal, Michael Del Zotto, Marian Gaborik or Brad Richards. They could have asked for fewer players and received a younger player who could become the superstar that Rick Nash was.

Sure, the players received will help, but the loss of a superstar will hurt the team in the long run. Pair that with a backup goalie as a first-time starter, and it could be a long year in Columbus. 

Like the Blues, the Blackhawks didn't really make some news this offseason. The Hawks signed Sheldon Brookbank, but that was it. The Hawks saw a very disappointing season last year, finishing fourth in the Central. Corey Crawford was extremely shaky and, if that happens again, no matter how good Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane or post-injury Marian Hossa is, the team will not succeed. 

Detroit is most likely to challenge the Blues for the Central crown, but it took a huge hit in the offseason. Nicklas Lidstrom retired after 20 seasons with the Red Wings. The Wings added Mikael Samuelsson and Jordin Tootoo to their bottom-six forwards, and added Jonas Gustavsson to back up Jimmy Howard.

But, the loss of Lidstrom and Brad Stuart will be apparent and the team will have a hard time assimilating to the loss of its veteran presences.

As for the Blues, they extended contracts on T.J. Oshie, David Perron, Ryan Reaves and Chris Stewart. Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak look to improve on their career years. Ken Hitchcock will be behind the bench. Alex Pietrangelo and Kevin Shattenkirk are ready to show the league they are elite defensemen.

And, possibly most importantly, the Blues have a reliable owner ready to take the team to new heights.

In the toughest division in the West and possibly in the NHL, the Blues are poised to show they are the best.   

Just hours before the St. Louis Blues and T.J. Oshie were set to present their cases to an arbitrator, the two sides came to an agreement. There will be no arbitration, and both sides are very happy with the deal.

The Blues' Twitter feed has reported that Oshie signed a new five-year contract. Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch values the average yearly salary at $4.175 million dollars. 

Oshie should be extremely happy with his contract. He will be tied up with the Blues for the next five years, allowing the core of the Blues' team to remain intact for at least the next four years. The Blues have been hesitant with Oshie because of some immaturity and streaky play, but the length of the contract shows that the Blues are going all-in on Oshie.

As stated earlier, the Blues will have their core locked up for a good four years. This will allow for the players to build on the momentum they created this past season. Oshie will be a part of the team that rides the success and could potentially bring the city of St. Louis their first Stanley Cup.

Oshie is a fan favorite in St. Louis, and by signing him long-term, the Blues are showing that they are invested in their fans and in winning. They want to keep their homegrown talent because they know they can win with it. 

The Blues have created a team that can win—and Oshie, for the next five years, is a big part of it. 

One of the best teams in the NHL should be jumping for joy that Zach Parise and Ryan Suter have signed with the Minnesota Wild.

This team was not a contender to sign either of the two at any point, but it is one of the top contenders to win the Stanley Cup this upcoming season and its chances have just increased.

This team is the St. Louis Blues.

Division rivals Detroit and Chicago missed out on the prized free agents and Nashville has been thrown into a panic after losing one of its biggest stars.

The Blues won the Central Division for the first time since 2000 last season, and while St. Louis has not made any significant signings this offseason, it has been a successful one so far.

The Central is one of the strongest divisions in hockey, but now, since Nashville and Detroit have been depleted by free-agent losses and retirements and Chicago still has not found any solutions for its weak defense or goaltending, St. Louis' chances of winning the Central just became a little bit better.

The Blues don't have to worry about Zach Parise in the Central Division and Ryan Suter (as well as possibly Shea Weber within the next year) has left a rival team.

As long as the Blues don't suffer injuries like they had in years before 2012, they should be considered the favorites to win the Central Division.

The Blues have a terrific forward corps including David Backes, TJ Oshie, Andy McDonald, David Perron, Alex Steen and Chris Stewart, but what really makes the Blues an elite team is their defense. Alex Pietrangelo will soon be a top-five NHL defenseman, and Kevin Shattenkirk and Barret Jackman are solid blueliners.

To back up the defense, the Blues have an outstanding goalie tandem in Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliott. These two were so good last year that they combined for the lowest goals-against average in hockey, and neither was a clear starter for the team. Talk about a good problem to have.

Nashville finished second in the division last year, but has had a horrible offseason so far, unable to sign its star defenseman and likely not being able to re-sign solid forward Andrei Kostitsyn.

The Predators will likely still be a decent team, but will also take a few steps back this season.

The Detroit Red Wings have been among hockey's elite for over 20 years, but took a hit this offseason by losing Nicklas Lidstrom, Brad Stuart and Jiri Hudler while failing to sign Parise and/or Suter.

If you think Ken Holland is done spending, though, think again. The Red Wings have a ton of cap space and, while they swung and missed on Parise and Suter, they should still be able to put together a solid team next year.

Chicago came into the offseason as possibly the best offensive team in the NHL, but it needed defense and goaltending. The Blackhawks made a run at Zach Parise, but failed, and have not bolstered their defense or goaltending in any way.

Obviously, they still have time to spend money on free agents or trade for a goalie, but an extremely quiet offseason won't help, and most of the top defensemen are all off the market now.

Makes you wonder whether or not they will try to trade Patrick Kane.

And Columbus...well, they're Columbus. The Blues don't have to worry about them. There is the possibility, however, that Rick Nash will be traded to someone in the Eastern Conference or someone in another division, which would cause the Blues to play less games against the superstar.

The Blues should be able to win the Central again this year as long as injuries don't interfere in a major way; however, these signings could still hurt the Blues some time in the future.

With a new realignment coming in 2013-14 (hopefully), the Blues may be put into the same division as the Minnesota Wild.

St. Louis would have to compete with the newly-upgraded team more often each season; however, until Minnesota's plethora of prospects all develop and reach their potential, the Blues will remain a better team than Minnesota by a long shot.

This season should be another fun one for St. Louis hockey fans.

Over the past three days, NHL fans and players everywhere have been waiting for where Zach Parise and Ryan Suter would sign their blockbuster deals. Now that both have signed, the dominoes should start to fall.

It had been reported that Matt Carle, regarded as the second-best defenseman on the market, would wait until Suter signed to make his decision. Jeremy Rutherford, beat writer for the Blues with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, believes that the Blues will not get into a bidding war to sign Carle.

I believe the Blues should go for it.

This Blues team showed promise that hadn't been seen in a very long time. Statistically, this year's team was the second-best team in the franchise's history. All the team was missing to make a serious Cup run was a top four defenseman, and Carle can fill that role.

With Carlo Colaiacovo most likely leaving the team, they need a sixth defenseman. If the Blues sign Carle, he will be in a defensive core with Alex Pietrangelo, Kevin Shattenkirk, Roman Polak, Barrett Jackman and Kris Russell. Five out of the six are household names. It could be the best defense in the NHL.

Pair that with the backstopping power of Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elloitt, and once a team hits center ice they will have a very hard time getting the puck into the net.

But there is also the off ice aspect the Blues should look at when attempting to sign a player like Carle. The Blues have not signed many big name players in a while because of ownership issues. Players like Jamie Langenbrunner or Jason Arnott are big names, but they aren't the superstars that they once were. Carle could be that superstar the Blues can use to market their team.

Not only will he be a superstar, but he is not a homegrown star. Players like David Perron, T.J. Oshie and David Backes came up through the system, showing that the Blues can grow their talent. But now it's time to show that the team can attract and sign talent as well.

If the Blues sign Matt Carle, they will do two things: First, they will fill a need that could have made the team a championship contender last season. They will have the ability to be the first Blues team to raise the Cup. But it will also show players that are in free agency in the future that the Blues can attract talent and sign the big name players the major markets want.

It is a win-win for the Blues, and it's time the Blues go all-in for a chance at Lord Stanley's Cup. 

The St. Louis Blues polished off a remarkable season with a second round exit at the hands of eventual Stanley Cup Champion Los Angeles Kings. The Blues played in arguably the hardest division, which saw four tams finish with over 100 points. The NHL just released the 2012-13 schedule, and it will not get any easier for the Blues.

The Blues start the season off on a two-game road trip, playing the season opener in Colorado before heading to Nashville. Opening against Colorado will be a great test for both teams, as the Blues will be able to continue to see how their blockbuster trade at the 2011 Trade Deadline is panning out. Colorado gets to test themselves against one of the top teams in the Western Conference as they look to be back in a playoff spot when the season is over.

The Blues will host the Detroit Red Wings in the home opener. The Red Wings have been one of the Blues' top rivals for many past years, and to open against them is a great move. It will be one of the best atmospheres Scottrade has seen in its history.

The Blues do not have really any big aspects to their schedule over the course of the season. The longest homestand and road trip are each five games, but there are two such road trips and only one five-game homestand. The homestand comes in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, giving the Blues an edge during the holiday season. The end of that home stand will be a great benchmark to see how the team is doing compared to this past season.

The first five-game road trip is from late January to early February and is mainly an Eastern Conference road trip. It will be right after the All-Star break and should not be much of a hiccup because the majority of the team will be rested from the break. It will also be a way to start the second half of the season on a difficult, but potentially great, start.

However, the second five-game road trip could not come at a worse time. The Blues finish five of their last six games on the road, playing in Tampa Bay, Miami, Columbus, Detroit and Chicago before facing off in St. Louis against Chicago in the season finale. Facing three divisional opponents in the last three games of the season could make for a very interesting final week for the entire NHL depending on how each team does over the course of the season.

The average point total of the Blues' opponents this upcoming season will be 90.54 points, which would be in between the 8 and 9 seeds of both the Eastern and Western Conferences. The Blues then will essentially have a successful season if they manage to make the playoffs this upcoming season statically speaking. The fans and players, of course, will want more.

A schedule does not hold much of a factor in hockey, where every team has the same ratio of divisional, conference, and inter-conference games. What really matters is the conference and division you play in. With the Blues playing in at least the second toughest division in the NHL, every game will be a must-win game. 

The great film director Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for not only creating theatrical works of art, but also for inserting himself into each feature like a hidden watermark. 

Ken Hitchcock seems to share some of the same characteristics.

His coaching style dominated the St. Louis Blues' team-first approach as he worked behind the scenes and only took center stage at key moments, like last night in Las Vegas at the NHL Awards ceremony.

The Blues organization received some well-earned recognition, as the team banked two more awards, in addition to the William M. Jennings Trophy already won by Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak for allowing the fewest goals against during the regular season.

Elliott and Halak were a dynamic duo between the pipes for the Blues all season. They both dominated for long stretches as each goalie pushed his netminding partner to consistently bring their A-game. Neither would have had as much success without the other.

The same could be said about Hitchcock and general manager Doug Armstrong.

Expectations were realistically high for a young, but maturing, St. Louis Blues squad that seemed poised to earn a middle seed in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Under second-year coach Davis Payne, however, the Blues never clicked and started the season with seven losses in the first 13 games. Armstrong made a decisive decision to replace Payne with notorious taskmaster Ken Hitchcock.

The Blues would go 43-15-11 the rest of the way to finish with 109 points which was the second-highest point total in team history. Hitchcock brought his trademark aggressive defense to a still-somewhat-raw team and, aside from a hiccup here and there, it was executed to perfection.

Longtime NHL-ers noticed that Hitchcock did dial back his inner drill sergeant, which was wise to do with a young team and proved the crusty coach was still relevant and agile enough to be a successful leader in today's NHL.

Doug Armstrong found the "Hitch" to pull his wagon into the playoffs, and the better Hitchcock and the Blues performed, the more light it cast on the outstanding job Armstrong has done with a rock-bottom budget and uncertain club ownership.

Fittingly, Armstrong took home the General Manager of the Year award.

On a team lacking individual stars, it is telling that the awards won by the Blues were team awards and with the Blues' ownership now settled, Armstrong will be able to start adding those individual stars to the mix.

The Blue Crew would love nothing more than to emulate the postseason work the Kings did this year next spring and have a Stanley Cup run of their own.