THAT’S MORE LIKE IT

Damien Cox says patience, persistence have paid off handsomely for the Blues,

Ground Zero for the St. Louis Blues was probably 2006, the year they finished dead-last in the NHL and had the first overall pick in the NHL draft. And blew it. Given the opportunity to start a rebuilding project with Jonathan Toews or even Nicklas Backstrom, the Blues instead selected towering defenceman Erik Johnson. Johnson has turned into an effective NHL regular over time, but not with St. Louis. He didn’t last five years in the organization.

It was the kind of decision that might set a franchise back several years, and maybe it did. It’s taken a full decade since that draft for the Blues to build a conference finalist, which should give pause to the Maple Leafs, Sabres, Oilers and other clubs who might be imagining a worst-to-first scenario in five years or less.

The Blues have done the slow-and-steady thing, or their fans might say they’ve done the maddening, disappointment after disappointment thing. GM Doug Armstrong, who arrived two years after the Johnson selection, says it doesn’t feel like the journey to the 2016 Western Conference final against San Jose has been a particularly long and winding road.

“No, it doesn’t. When I came here we were just fighting for respect, trying to get the organization back to being one that opponents respected,” he recalled on Friday. “Sure, the last couple of playoffs were disappointing. But it’s hard to win in this league. As Bob Gainey used to say, you’ve just got to get to the playoffs, and keep getting there, and sooner or later things will fall your way.”

Eliminating the reigning Cup champions, Chicago, in the first round, and then wiping out the Dallas Stars in Game 7 of their tight second-round series, have delivered the Blues to their first conference final since 2002.

It seems longer, if only because there were four seasons along the way of 98 points or more that didn’t turn into significant playoffs runs for the organization.

That created the impression the Blues had become one of those teams that just couldn’t get it done when it mattered the most. The Washington Capitals of the West, as it were. Last year’s first-round defeat to Minnesota left Armstrong, well, just angry.

“Maybe angry’s not the best word. Definitely disappointed,” he said. “No disrespect to Minnesota — and please make that clear — but when you lose to the Kings or the Hawks, teams that have won the Cup, that’s one thing. But Minnesota felt like we were losing to our direct peer. So it hurt more.”

Armstrong could have made big changes, and for a few days he was certainly in the mood to do so. But then he calmed down and met with owner Tom Stillman, and told him that even without making changes, this year’s Blues team would be better.

Vladimir Tarasenko would have one more year under his belt. Ditto for Jori Lehtera. And so on. Armstrong also resisted the easy option of dismissing coach Ken Hitchcock, whose contract had expired.

“It just seemed like it would be a mistake to get so angry, and do something that would take us two steps backwards,” he said. “And I like stability. I like stability in my life. And I like stability with teams I work for.”

So what changed the Blues from the team that lost to Minny to the club that’s now in the Final Four?

Well, Armstrong did move flashy winger T.J. Oshie to the Caps for some grit in winger Troy Brouwer, but otherwise he stood pat and was pleasantly surprised — shocked, really — that three youngsters stepped forward to provide the necessary change.

“We weren’t expecting Robby Fabbri would make our team. We thought Colton Parayko would need at least a half a year in the minors, and we figured Joel Edmundson would need at least another 40 games in the minors,” said Armstrong.

“But every practice, every exhibition game, they just kept competing with older, better players.” Edmundson was a second rounder from 2011 and Parayko a third rounder in ’12, and together they represent a third of the St. Louis blueline corps now. Fabbri, the 21st overall selection of 2014 out of the Guelph Storm junior organization, plays like a veteran and puts up numbers like a veteran. He’s got 13 points in 14 playoff games this spring.

And goalie Brian Elliott provided the solid play between the pipes, and those three youngsters generated some of the positive energy that often comes with change to a team that really didn’t want to change.

“They are why we didn’t have to make trades. Those guys were our trades,” said Armstrong.

This conference final comes at an interesting time for St. Louis, hard on the heels of the NFL’s Rams pulling up stakes and moving west. At the same time, the city is, for the first time, sending blue-chip hockey prospects to the NHL, the result of former Blues like Al MacInnis staying in the community and helping develop minor hockey in St. Louis.

Matthew Tkachuk (son of Keith), Logan Brown (son of Jeff ), Luke Kunin and Clayton Keller all played their formative years in St. Louis and all are expected to be firstround draft picks in Buffalo next month.

That’s an extraordinary hockey story.

So the Blues are trending upwards, and so is the sport in general in St. Louis.

It might not have been imaginable from last place in 2006, but a decade of persistence and patience has slowly changed everything in this hockey town. Damien Cox is a broadcaster with Sportsnet and a regular contributor to Hockey Night in Canada. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for the Star, and his column appears here Saturdays. Follow him @DamoSpin.