St. Louis Blues Still Waiting For All the Pieces to Come Together by Jamie Mannigel

Bleedin’ Blue has had some slightly unpopular opinions of late, so I figured I would join in. The St. Louis Blues need to plan on bringing Ken Hitchcock back.

There is a rather vocal base of the Blues’ Nation that wants both Hitch and GM Doug Armstrong gone. I’m really not sure why. Perhaps it’s because there is a rather ridiculously foolish belief that the next regime automatically makes any team better or builds on what has come before.

That’s nonsense. The Blues have seen some of their most consistent hockey, in terms of wins, under Armstrong and Hitchcock.

Armstrong can be kept out of the equation for now. However, Hitchcock has done more for this team than almost anyone before him. Now before you let your head explode, hear me out.

Only Joel Quenneville has more wins with the Blues in the regular season and, believe it or not, Hitchcock has a better win percentage.

Arguments could be made on both sides, but many would agree that Coach Q’s teams were better overall. So, if that is true, Hichcock has done as much or better with less.

That same vocal base will argue that Hitchcock has been holding the Blues back offensively. Maybe the man has changed with time. None of us know him personally. However, he has been in charge of some of the most offensively potent teams in the league. He simply demands his players to play a complete game.

When he was with the Stars, the team averaged 236.4 goals per season in his five full years with the team. His teams averaged 235.7 goals a season in his three full years with the Flyers. Even the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets averaged 211.5 goals during his time there.

The Blues have averaged 235.3 goals per season in his three previous full seasons with St. Louis. That’s on par with his two teams that made the Conference finals and Cup finals. His Blues team scored 129 goals in half a season in 2012-13 and has 187 this year, which is admittedly down from years past with only 11 games left as of writing this, but even the vaunted Chicago offense only has 8 more goals at the moment.

When you take into account the job he has done with the team he has had this season, that’s the nail in the coffin. The guy should be awarded Coach of the Year by getting the Blues into a position where they could still win the division considering how many players he has lost throughout the season.

People will whine about line combinations and his tinkering. They will say he has forced players like Jaroslav Halak and TJ Oshie out of town due to personal vendettas. None of that matters.

The man wins games and there just aren’t that many coaches out there that would be a marked improvement. The Blues already pulled the trigger on firing a successful coach, with many saying his time had come and the team would build from there.

Well, Quenneville went on to win Stanley Cups elsewhere and the Blues went in the tank.

Now, I’m no fool. There is a HUGE caveat to all of this. That rather big caveat is playoff production. For whatever reason, the Blues just haven’t been able to get over the hump during Hitchcock’s tenure (though they haven’t really gotten over the hump under many coaches’ tenure).

Whether you blame Hitch, Armstrong or the players themselves, the Blues have crashed and burned in the second season.

There have been young and inexperienced teams. There have been teams that wheeled and dealed and made strong pushes toward the playoffs. Unfortunately, the same outcome ended the season.

I will still argue that Hitchcock should be retained, but there is no doubt that hockey is not European soccer. If the Blues flame out early again, it is much easier to not give a new contract to the head coach than it is to replace an entire team.

If a new general manager was brought in due to the playoff failures, there is little doubt they would be more likely to want their own coach, which would not benefit Hitchcock.

Regardless of who is the GM, the Blues’ contract situation with several players preclude making mass changes, so the playoffs are huge to Ken Hitchcock’s future. But despite what so many want to believe, the Blues have won under him and it is not in spite of him.

He has done a masterful job of getting this team to overcome huge amounts of adversity this season when they could have easily folded and used the injuries as an excuse. That kind of production deserves a reward and that reward should be a contract extension.