Blues head coach has long been a Bouwmeester fan
The St. Louis Blues’ pursuit of defenceman Jay Bouwmeester has never been a secret.
At the NHL awards ceremony in Las Vegas last June, Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock had accolades for Bouwmeester when his name came up in conversation in a hotel casino coffee place. They were together on Canada’s 2006 Olympic team.
“I see Jay as a 200-foot player. I see him as a great penalty killer, good enough to play on one of the power-play units, he’s very good against the top players,” Hitchcock said. “He’s good at the end of hockey games. He does a lot of things as a defenceman that over the course of a game you begin to appreciate.
“You don’t realize how valuable those players are until you don’t have them because the end of games becomes a fire drill.”
The Blues acquired Bouwmeester from the Calgary Flames for two bit pieces — five-foot-nine defenceman Mark Cundari and Swiss goalie Reto Berra — and a first-round draft pick this June, if the Blues make the playoffs. If not, it’s the 2014 draft crop.
By all indications Cundari, who played three years in Windsor with former Spitfires teammate Taylor Hall, was an American Hockey League allstar last season, but the Blues still signed Jeff Woywitka and Taylor Chorney last summer, not feeling Cundari was a top prospect.
Berra is 26 and in their organizational scheme of things. The Blues like former Clarkson goalie Paul Karpowich better as a long-range goaltender.
The Blues are taking on Bouwmeester’s $6.8-million contract for next season. They also have to re-sign Alex Pietrangelo, his blue-line partner for probably $6 million a year because he’s their No. 1 and a possible Canadian Olympic player, Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk.
St. Louis also has Swedish centre Patrik Berglund, but he could be trade bait. He might fit better on another team, on left wing with his shot, than as the No. 1 or 1A centre with David Backes.
The elephant in the room in St. Louis, however, is the unsettled goaltending this season. Jaroslav Halak is a 1A goalie and Brian Elliott is as well, save for last season’s unexpected nine shutouts. Halak is prone to injury and is out with a groin problem, maybe for the rest of the regular season.
When Halak was healthy and rookie Jake Allen was winning games, Elliott looked like the only time he’d see the ice was sitting beside the Zamboni driver.
But after a two-game stint in the AHL at Peoria, he actually was very good against the Chicago Blackhawks in the 4-3 shootout win Thursday.
He was also terrific on Sunday, earning at shutout against the Detroit Red Wings. He made a phenomenal glove stop on Pavel Datsyuk in traffic in the last minute.
“He looks like he’s got his game back …” Hitchcock said of Elliott.
Millers’s time to go?
So the Buffalo Sabres off-loaded captain Jason Pominville, one of their three core players, to the Minnesota Wild one year before he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
What about goalie Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek, the Sabres’ best natural scorer? They’re out the door, too, probably this summer.
Miller, who frankly hasn’t been the same goalie since his stellar work at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, which coincided with his Vezina Trophy-winning season, wants to join a team closer to where his actress wife Noureen DeWolf is working — namely Los Angeles.