There is no single, recognized model for building a Stanley Cup winner.
Some teams do it by trading, some by using their charge cards in the
free-agent market. Some even try bottom-feeding, but that doesn't get far these days. Some teams
still believe in the old-fashioned way – player development.
As the old year turned into the new one, the old-fashioned way is how the St. Louis Blues got to be the best team
in the NHL.
In fact, as of Jan. 1, the Blues had the best winning percentage in the
NHL and their top affiliate, the Worcester IceCats, had the best winning percentage in the
American Hockey League. Drop down one final notch and St. Louis' East Coast Hockey League
team, the Peoria Rivermen, had the fourth-best winning percentage in the ECHL.
The organization's totals were 65-22-11 for a winning percentage of .719.
|  | | Lubos Bartecko, right, is one of many Blues players developed "in house." |
St. Louis dropped a bit with its loss to the Senators and Nashville, but the point remains relevant: the organization is perhaps the deepest in all of pro hockey.
Eight St. Louis regulars, including Rookie-of-the-Year candidate Brent Johnson in goal, came up through the Blues farm system.
Yet the plight of three others may better illustrate the point.
Center Marty Reasoner, who went 10-14-24 in 32 NHL games last year, couldn't get enough ice time this season and is in Worcester. When the Blues ran into injury problems and had to call up both Daniel Corso and Pascal Rheaume for a Dec. 5 game against Anaheim, Corso scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory. Both he and Rheaume were sent back to Worcester the next day.
"I've always believed in development," says Larry Pleau. "I think that, to succeed long-term, you have to have some kind of development. When I first interviewed in St. Louis, one of the things they said they wanted was a home-grown product, and they've made a long-term commitment to that."
Pleau learned about development very early in his career. He was property of the Montreal Canadiens at age 16 and played for the legendary Montreal Voyageurs of the AHL in 1969-70. "In those years," he said, "it was all player development. That's just the way
it was." That Voyageurs team had a roster that included Pleau, Jude Drouin, Guy Charron, Rejean Houle, Guy Lapointe, Bob Berry, Peter Mahovlich, Pierre Bouchard, player-coach Al MacNeil and goalie Phil Myre, among others.
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True Blues
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Players on the Blues' roster as of Jan. 7 who began their professional careers in St. Louis' minor-league system:
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Player
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Pos.
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Lubos Barteko
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LW
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Michal Handzus
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C
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Jochen Hecht
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LW
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Brent Johnson
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G
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Reed Low
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RW
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Jamal Myers
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RW
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Ladislav Nagy
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RW
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Bryce Salvador
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D
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Perhaps, the most telling fact about the Blues' ability to develop players is they have been able to do so despite poor draft position.
They forfeited five first-round draft picks to Washington for signing Scott Stevens as a free agent in 1990 and have had only four first-round selections since 1989. Yet they've been able to uncover sleepers like Jamal Mayers (89th overall, 1993), Michal Handzus (101st overall, 1995), Reed Low (177th overall, 1996), and Ladislav Nagy (117th, 1997).
Their amateur scouting department, headed by Ted Hampson, did the legwork to acquire other teams' prospects, unsigned draft picks and undrafted free agents such as Brent Johnson (acquired from Colorado for two draft picks), Bryce Salvador (signed as a free agent in 1996), Tyson Nash (signed as a free agent in 1998), and Lubos
Bartecko (signed as a free agent in 1997).
Low is a good example of what time in the AHL can do. Low started his career with the Blues in the ECHL. After 39 games, he moved to Worcester where he spent parts of three seasons and went from being two fists and a hockey stick to being a guy who was on the ice in the last minute of one-goal games.
"I liked Low the first time I saw him at camp," Pleau remembers. "He was
way overweight and out of shape, but he had a pretty good sense of the game and
pretty good hands. "But he was willing to go down to the ECHL for almost a whole year and
work on the things he needed to do to get to the NHL."
The last time an organization had teams that were the best in both the
AHL and NHL was back in 1994-95 when the Devils and their Albany affiliate both won
championships.
On the current Blues roster, Johnson, Low, Salvador and Nash all spent at
least three years in the minors, with Nash actually starting in the Canucks' farm system.
That kind of patience is not something every organization has.
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Home-grown Handzus
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Michal Handzus is one of the "home-grown" Blues players. But his time in the minors was just as much about living in America as it was learning the rigors of pro hockey.
Handzus came from Slovakia in 1997 and hardly spoke a word of English. North American elbows were just as hard as ordering at McDonald's. He spent the entire season playing for St. Louis' AHL affiliate in Worcester, Mass.
"I knew I had to be there. I didn't speak English," he said. "I had a couple of guys from my (home) country, and I had a teacher who gave me lessons. I went to sleep at night and read for an hour. Now, I talk as much as I can.
"If they put me in the NHL right away or called me up in February or March, it would have been too early. I needed the time there to learn, and it was great for me."
Now, Handzus can speak the language and comfortably address the media. And there's also the added bonus of entering the NHL locker room with familiar faces from his AHL days.
– Brian A. Shactman
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"You have to look at it that way," Pleau said, "when you are turning guys
pro at 19, 20 and 21. You have to look (ahead) three to three-and-a-half years. But there's a
problem with the finance thing, too. How long can you stay with a guy? You have to make
decisions both ways, cut bait, move on."
Interestingly, none of the Blues' home-grown players ever won any individual awards in the minors, or made any end-of-season all-star teams, or all-rookie teams. Salvador didn't even score a goal in his last year with Worcester, but numbers have
never been the critical thing in the St. Louis system.
"People think development is just playing," Pleau said, "and for some players, it is. But for the majority of the players it's more than that. It's how they are handled, how they are communicated with at all levels of the organization. You can give players the opportunity to make better decisions for themselves. Some, you just put them on the ice, and they develop themselves. For others, there's the time element."
It is also more than just players. When Greg Gilbert, who coached
Worcester for four years, moved up to an assistant's job in Calgary, the Blues moved Don Granato
in from Peoria, where he had won a playoff championship. Granato's assistant at Worcester is Pleau's son Steve, whose chances at a pro playing career were ended by a series of concussions.
Pleau sees dozens of IceCats games a year and Blues coach Joel Quenneville drops by whenever the schedule allows. Blues team president Mark Sauer also sees at least a couple of games a year in Worcester.
It takes time and patience to build an organization. That's not a new idea, but it's one that the St. Louis Blues have used to become the NHL's newest example of a model organization.
Bill Ballou covers professional hockey and baseball for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
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