Andy Mcdonald

As a four-time Stanley Cup champion and Olympic hero, Scott Niedermayer hung up the skates for good in June.  This is probably not a surprise to Ducks fans, who have seen their long-time captain toy with the idea of retirement since mid-2007 every season.

Continue reading "Niedermayer Not the Hero Everyone May Think He Is"

Its hard to find a bright spot on a team that is currently ranked 21st in goals scored.  Alex Steen is the exception.

The St. Louis forward was not expected to be an offensive force when he was acquired from Toronto on November 24 with Carlo Colaiacovo for Lee Stempniak. Spanning over his two final seasons with the Maple Leafs, Steen played in 86 games and scored just 17 goals, including a minuscule two goals in his final twenty games.  It was even reported that Toronto head coach Ron Wilson was the only member of the Maple Leafs management team to not even say goodbye to Steen the day of the trade.  Steen came to St. Louis looking like another disappointing forward, since his 24th overall selection in 2002 built him up as the gun the Maple Leafs were looking for.  He may have faltered with his former team, but he seemed to fit in with the Blues after just a few weeks.

Continue reading "Steen Should be Top-Priority"

The offensive side of the red line is not the one that aged Blues fans may be used to.

The days of Adam Oates or Pierre Turgeon are over in St. Louis.  It is hard to find which Blue may stand out from the rest, much like the start of last season.  Brad Boyes and David Backes took that spot over with relative ease during the Blues' amazing playoff run.

Continue reading "The Official 2009-10 NHL Hockey Online ..."

The Columbus Blue Jackets and St. Louis Blues entered the 2009 NHL Playoffs with high hopes for their respective teams.  Those thoughts became nothing but a few pipe dreams for their fans and players what seemed like minutes after the playoffs had begun.

Continue reading "Poor Early Exits Provide Little Experience"

The Blues have made a few changes in the past week.  Let’s take a look at how the Blues are making headlines:

Manny Legace placed on waivers; clears and heads to Peoria in the AHL

Continue reading "Weighing in on Recent Blues News"

If you have ever seen the movie “Slap Shot,” you probably know that player/coach Reg Dunlop got pretty annoyed by people telling him how to run his team.  In a bar, a man approached Dunlop and simply stated, “Get the power-play going, eh?” Reg’s response:  “Yea, we’re working on it,” while looking away and paying attention to something else going on in the distance.  To me, I feel like head coach Andy Murray has the same response to media and the St. Louis Blues fans.  It doesn’t seem to me that Murray is putting an honest effort to improve the Blues’ power-play. 

Continue reading "New Power-Play Strategy Needed"

The first day for the Blues’ training camp is officially in the books.  I was only able to stay until noon, but got a pretty good look at what the coaches were expecting.  They pretty much took the day to get the players ready for more vigorous training in the next few days.  They ran one drill in the hour and a half that I attended, and it seemed to just give an idea of how in shape the players truly are after their long summer.  They set up cones at the ends of the rink, and they had about eight players at a time skate back and forth at the sound of a tone played over the loud speaker.  Each time the players had to skate a little harder, and stop on a dime when hitting the next set of cones.  This is a drill that is run purely for endurance and agility training, not to mention speed and quickness of the feet.  I was able to make many observations while watching.

Continue reading "Training Camp Day 1 Wrap-Up"