Vegas Golden Knights Expansion Outlook: St. Louis Blues
Vegas Golden Knights have a few options to choose from when picking from the St. Louis Blues roster.
Vegas Golden Knights General Manager George McPhee and pro scouts have to pay very close attention to the St. Louis Blues. The Blues are coming off a season where they fell just short of their goal of going to the Stanley Cup Finals. This team took a step in the wrong direction this year thanks to departures of Troy Brouwer and David Backes.
St. Louis is barely in the playoff mix, coming in as the second wild card in the Western Conference. Losing Brouwer and Backes to free agency didn’t help, but losing young stud forward Robby Fabbri for the season was devastating. They even had to fire Head Coach Ken Hitchcock due to the team’s inconsistent play.
The St. Louis will have no other choice but to use the seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender scheme. If they go the other route, they’ll stand to lose a ton of quality forwards on their roster. Blues General Manager Doug Armstrong has to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Jake Allen took also a step back from his development this season. The team’s success hinges on Allens ability in net for St. Louis. Allen has a 22-18-3 record with a 2.66 GAA and a .905 save percentage. With Allen only being 26 years old, he’ll be the goalie the Blues end up keeping. Carter Hutton however has put up some huge games down the stretch for St. Louis.
With Kevin Shattenkirk gone, it makes it a little easier to see who the Blues will retain. Young defensemen Colton Parayko and Jordan Schmaltz will be exempt from the expansion draft. The no-brainer choices are Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester. It’s the last defenseman spot that might cause problems for Armstrong. In all probability, the Blues will protect Joel Edmundson but Carl Gunnarsson and Petteri Lindbohm will challenge for that spot.
At forward, the Blues won’t have to worry about losing young guns Fabbri, Connor Bleackley or Mackenzie MacEachern as all will be exempt. The obvious locks are superstar Vladmir Tarasenko, Paul Stastny, Jaden Schwartz, Jori Lehtera and Alex Steen. Patrik Berglund just signed a contract to stay with the Blues so he will also grab another one of those slots. Leaving only one slot left between David Perron, Dmitrij Jaskin and Nail Yakupov.
The last spot will probably go to Perron. He’s been with the Blues for 7 out of the 11 years in his career. This season Perron has 12 Goals, 21 Assists and 33 Points. Perron is a shifty forward who can play either wing position and is an excellent playmaker. The problem with Perron is he’s aging and injuries are a concern especially when concussions come into play.
The Vegas Golden Knights have quite the decision to make. Does George McPhee decide to take a chance on a Nail Yakupov? Or should he go with a project defenseman in Petteri Lindbohm? I say neither.
The player that George McPhee should try to acquire is Dmitrij Jaskin. Jaskin is a big forward standing at 6’2 and weighing 217 pounds that can play all three forward positions. At the age of 23 years old, he would be a nice fit on 3rd line role with a chance to grow into something bigger. Jaskin only has one goal and nine assists and 10 points this year but he plays on a limited role for the Blues.
Jaskin still needs to work on a few things such as finding his niche at the NHL level. Jaskin also needs to find a way to be more consistent from game to game. The Russian born Right Wing needs to start scoring more at a regular pace than what he’s been given despite his small amount of ice time.
Jaskin has plenty of his game to improve upon before the season is over. However, with the team in need of versatile forwards Jaskin fits that role. George McPhee would be wise to take this player also given his contract is only worth one million dollars next year.
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Golden Knights Prediction: Dmitrij Jaskin