(Ed. Note: It’s the NHL Alternate History project! We’ve asked fans and bloggers from 31 teams to pick one turning point in their franchise’s history and ask ‘what if things had gone differently?’ Trades, hirings, firings, wins, losses, injuries … all of it. How would one different outcome change the course of history for an NHL team? Today: Brad Lee of St. Louis Game Time on the St. Louis Blues, in an ode to the great QUANTUM LEAP. Enjoy!)

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By Brad Lee

[A flash of light, and suddenly the silhouette of Jarmo Kekalainen is filled with shiny cosmic-looking stuff. When it fades, he’s replaced with actor Scott Bakula (St. Louis native) playing the role of Dr. Sam Beckett. Jarmo (Sam) is sitting at a conference table in the bowels of the Savvis center. Men in golf shirts with winged musical notes surround the table.]

[It is June 23, 2006.]

John Davidson: This is our final meeting before tomorrow’s draft. We need a plan. And I believe we need a defenseman. We’ve got a lot of impact forwards in the pipeline. I have high hopes for the foreign kids from 2002, Alexei Shkotov, Andrei Mikhnov and Tomas Troliga. I like David Backes from 2003. Carl Soderberg I see being an impact player. And that Oshie kid, he’s a real spark-plug.

Larry Pleau: Are we sure Erik Johnson is the guy? He’s set to go to Minnesota for at least a year. What if he likes college? What if he falls in love with golf and drives off in his cart for four years? We’d be wrecked. Let’s go forward. A center. Can never have enough centers. Our plane leaves for Vancouver this afternoon. Of course with a connecting flight through Dallas and another in Las Vegas. So time is short. We need to decide.

JD: Jarmo, what do you think?

Sam Beckett: Well…I. Uh. Oh boy

(Theme music plays)

“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished… He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.”

Sam: Can we take a break?

JD: We just started.

Sam: I need to go to the restroom. (runs out)

(In the bathroom, Sam’s holographic companion Al arrives)

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