The objective was clear for the Blues in revamping their third and fourth lines.
They had a need for speed.
In trading for Alexandre Texier from Columbus and Mathieu Joseph from Ottawa, in addition to re-signing Kasperi Kapanen, the Blues remade their bottom six to be one that was based on above-average skaters on the wings. Of course, the Blues already employ the lanky, speedy and physical Alexey Toropchenko.
“We wanted to get to be a faster team,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “If you look at our third and fourth line, however you want to describe it, I don’t think we’ve ever had better skaters if you go with Joseph and Kappy, and you go Torp and Texier. We have really quick players down there now that are going to get in on the forecheck, that can kill penalties, that are going to relieve some of that necessity for our top-end players to kill, allow them to have more offensive-zone faceoffs.”
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The Blues also traded for center Radek Faksa from Dallas, though Faksa’s strengths do not lie in his skating ability but rather his size, his ability to play to his size, win faceoffs and kill penalties. Faksa and Oskar Sundqvist could be the team’s third- and fourth-line centers when training camp opens in the fall.
“He’s a big man,” Armstrong said of Faksa. “He’s big, strong, he plays down low, he can roll around. I think with that and with Sunny, they’re not the fleetest of foot players, but having that speed on the wings is going to allow them to put the puck in the right areas and have those guys forecheck but also be very good defensively.”
But the Blues’ bottom six will have a different look thanks to the offseason additions.
According to NHL Edge player tracking data, Joseph was in the 79th percentile among forwards in top skating speed and the 84th percentile in bursts above 20 mph. Texier was in the 62nd percentile in top speed and the 73rd in speed bursts.
That’s in addition to Toropchenko (81st percentile in top speed, 97th in speed bursts) and Kapanen (93rd percentile in top speed, 86th in speed bursts), who were among the very best skaters in the NHL last season.
The new-look bottom six will replace players like Kevin Hayes (in the bottom quarter in both top speed and speed bursts) and Sammy Blais (below average in both categories).
“I think we’re a better team right now than we were at the end of last season, just with the three additions to that part of our lineup,” Armstrong said. “We’re faster. We’re more determined. We’re bigger. Obviously, we need the big dogs to be the big dogs. That’s the reality of it.”
The acquisitions now give the Blues 18 forwards competing for 14 spots on the roster and 12 spots in the lineup.
Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich, Jake Neighbours, Brayden Schenn and Brandon Saad are penciled into the Ƶ top six. Toropchenko, Faksa, Joseph, Texier and Sundqvist figure to be roster certainties.
Kapanen should have a leg up in the chase for the last spot in the lineup, though fringe players like Nathan Walker, Mackenzie MacEachern and Nikita Alexandrov will be trying to avoid being waived to the AHL.
Prospects Zack Bolduc, Zach Dean and Dalibor Dvorsky will be looking to earn a spot on the opening night roster for the first times in their careers but will have to push someone out of a spot above them.
“I expect those guys to push for a roster spot,” Armstrong said. “If Bolduc pushes into our six, that’s great because then all of a sudden, one of those guys I just mentioned goes into our seven, one of our seven goes to our bottom three, and one of the guys in our bottom three goes out. That’s good internal competition.
“I think Dean needs to come in, he needs to look those centericemen right in the eye and say, ‘I want your job.’ They have to look him in the eye and say, ‘You’re not having it.’ That’s really what you want. When there’s complacency that you don’t have an option as a coach or a manager, it’s easy (for players). I think there’s going to be competition.”
Of course, the Blues paid a price for that competition, attaching a second-round pick to Hayes in a deal that sent him to Pittsburgh. Armstrong said it was beneficial for both the Blues and Hayes to have a clean break and fell back on the number of recent high draft picks as reasoning for splitting with a future one.
“It’s the number of first- and second- and third-round picks we’ve had the last couple years,” Armstrong said. “It’s not ideal. I’m not minimizing it. It wasn’t a great day. I wasn’t excited about doing it. But when you look at in its totality of what’s best for the player, what’s best for the organization, we ripped the Band-Aid off. Bringing someone in and having an unhappy situation in training camp, either from the player or from the management, whatever it was, (isn’t good).”
In the past two years, the Blues have had 10 picks in the top three rounds of the draft. Only Chicago (13), Anaheim (12), Arizona/Utah (12) and Nashville (11) have had more.