All-Time Team: St. Louis Blues (1967-present)

  Happy Labour Day, everyone. It's that time of year again. The Coolest Game on Earth^TM is about to begin anew and as per tradition I'm taking a look at the history and greatest all-time players of last season's Stanley Cup Champion team, this time the St. Louis Blues. Here's a brief history.

  The Blues are one of the six expansion teams that doubled the NHL's size in 1967. They were easily the best of the new franchises and led by their sterling defence and the past-their-prime-but-still-dream-team goaltending duo of Jacques Plante and Glenn Hall they made the Stanley Cup finals in each of their first three seasons only to be swept every time by an Original Six team. The 1970's were a shakier period for St. Louis. The playoffs format was shuffled, the defensive corps was broken up, and the NHL was given a divisional realignment which didn't favour the Blues (at first). From 1973 to 1980 St. Louis made the playoffs five times but couldn't win a single series. At around this time several deferred contracts came up due. Additionally there was the rival league, the World Hockey Association, splitting up the hockey market. In short, the team was in financial distress.

  At least their game was making a recovery. A year after posting a franchise worst 18-50-12 record (1978-79), the Blues returned to the playoffs for what would be the first in a 25-year playoff streak (1980-2004). New talent was emerging within the team, including franchise player Bernie Federko, captain Brian Sutter, and star goaltender Mike Liut. Off ice, things were a mess by 1983. To make a long story short, the team was losing money year-on-year, new owners came in, they tried moving the team to Saskatoon, the NHL blocked the move, the owners tried suing the league, the league countersued, new owners couldn't be found, the Blues were set to dissolve but a new owner was found just in time so the team stayed in St. Louis.

  The Blues remained a competitive, though not spectacular, team throughout the 1980's. They didn't score as much as most other teams, but their defence was pretty good (a common strength throughout Blues history). They seemed unable to hold on to their young stars. Some – including Doug Gilmour, Rob Ramage, and Joe Mullen – would go on to become key figures in the Calgary Flames' 1989 Stanley Cup championship. But in the late 1980's and early 1990's St. Louis made some solid trades thanks to GM Ron Caron. New faces included Curtis Joseph, Brendan Shanahan, Adam Oates, and – as fate would have it, from Calgary – Al MacInnis and of course Brett Hull, one of the greatest goal-scorers of all time.

  Despite this new and exciting talent, St. Louis still couldn't make it past the second round of the playoffs. Mike Keenan was brought in as head coach and GM in 1994 and he immediately got to work swapping out Shanahan and Joseph for big names like Grant Fuhr, Pierre Turgeon, Chris Pronger, and even Wayne Gretzky (who didn't stay long). Keenan's schemes didn't quite work out and he was canned in 1996.

  The late 1990's Blues saw the departure of star players Hull and Fuhr, but also saw the emergence of new stars like Keith Tkachuk, Pavol Demitra, and goaltender Roman Turek. These acquisitions combined with solid defensive play from blueliners MacInnis and Pronger made St. Louis a strong contender. I'm going to go on record and say that the early 2000's Blues were one of the best NHL teams to have not won the Stanley Cup. Despite a league-topping season in 1999-2000 (51-19-11-1, 114 points) the deepest playoff run the team could manage was a semi-finals loss to the Colorado Avalanche in 2001.

  The 2005-06 season saw the Blues' playoff streak come to an end as they finished with the worst record in the league. Given that another ownership tossup was underway and game attendance was fading away, a serious rebuild was in need. New management was brought in, new players were brought in. The team's game improved but a return to the postseason wouldn't happen until 2009. After an opening-round four-game sweep at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks that same year the Blues would have to wait another three years for playoff action thanks to an overwhelmingly competitive Western Conference.

  2011 saw a new set of owners and a new coach, but this time things went according to plan thanks to new free agents like Jason Arnott, Jamie Langenbrunner, and Brian Elliott as well as some decent draft picks later on including David Backes and Alex Pietrangelo. Since then St. Louis has been its normal competitive self and despite being last place at the start of 2019 they somehow rallied back that same year to earn a playoff berth and then win Lord Stanley's Cup, becoming the last of the remaining 1967 expansion teams to do so.

  In their 52 seasons the St. Louis Blues have won nine division championships and one President's Trophy (1999-2000). They've made it to the postseason an astounding 42 times, advancing to the finals four times with one Stanley Cup championship in 2019.

  The Blues have had some excellent players in those 52 years and today I'm going to put forth my idea of what an all-time fantasy team might look like. For this I've considered only the achievements of players as they wore a St. Louis uniform (so don't expect Wayne Gretzky to show up) and I've restricted this roster to players who were in St. Louis for at least 225 games. Let's begin!

Forwards

L-R: Hull, Berenson, Meagher

Left Wing	Centre	Right Wing
Brian Sutter (1976-88)	Bernie Federko (1976-89)	Brett Hull (1988-98)
Keith Tkachuk (2001-07, 2007-10)	Gary Unger (1971-79)	Pavol Demitra (1996-2004)
Red Berenson (1967-71, 1974-78)	Doug Gilmour (1983-88)	Jamal Mayers (1996-2008)
Tony Twist (1994-99)	Rick Meagher (1985-91)	Reed Low (2000-04)

As per typical fare, the first line consists of the most talented scorers. This includes aggressive playmaker Brian Sutter (7 campaigns north of 140 penalty minutes), four-time 100 point-scorer and all-time points leader Bernie Federko, and Brett Hull who had five straight 50-goal seasons (including three straight 70 goal seasons!). Next up, with 3x30 goal outings and 5x70 point showings, is the clean playmaker Pavol Demitra. Backing him up are two tenacious scorers, Gary Unger (8x30 goals, 5x60 points) and Keith Tkachuk (3x30 goals). On the third line we've got the durable special teams man Red Berenson, versatile agitator Doug Gilmour, and reliable defensive specialist Jamal Mayers. And our fourth line provides some enforcement from Low and Twist as well as some forechecking and defensive play Rick Meagher.

Honourable mentions: Joe Mullen, Jorgen Petterson, Brendan Shanahan, Vladimir Tarasenko, Pierre Turgeon

Defencemen

L-R: Pronger, Jackman

Al MacInnis (1994-2004)	Chris Pronger (1995-2005)
Rob Ramage (1982-88)	Barrett Jackman (2002-2015)
Bob Plager (1967-78)	Barclay Plager (1967-76)

As you might be able to tell from the lengthy honourable mentions list here picking the Blues's six best defencemen was not an easy task. St. Louis has had a multitude of amazing blueliners over the years, but I believe that I've found the cream of the crop. Let's start with the back-to-back Norris Trophy-winning duo of Chris Pronger and Al MacInnis. Not only did they shut down the opposition but they also contributed a fair bit to their team's offence. Rob Ramage's style of play was similar but with a bit more physicality (which previously earned him a spot on my all-time loser franchises lineup [for the Rockies]). At his side is the rugged stay-at-home D-man Barrett Jackman. And our third pairing is anchored by the rough-and-tumble Plager brothers.

Honourable mentions: Tim Bothwell, Jay Bouwmeester, Jeff Brown, Jack Brownschidle, Paul Cavallini, Alex Pietrangelo

Goaltenders

Liut

Mike Liut (1979-85)

Curtis Joseph (1989-95)

There were several netminders I considered putting on this team,but in my opinion Mike Liut barely beats out Curtis Joseph as the best Blues goaltender ever. Arguably the NHL’s best goalie of the 1980’s, Liut – whom I also selected as the Whalers’ best goalie back in May 2017 – posted two consecutive 30-win seasons and was voted league MVP by his fellow players in 1980-81.

Honourable mentions: Brian Elliott, Grant Fuhr

That does it for this year's defending Stanley Cup champions. Check in later this month for my top picks from one of the NHL's past clubs.