As Blues coach Mike Yeo made an eight-hour drive to St. Louis last weekend, he recalled his feelings of coming to town a year ago as the team's "coach in waiting."
"I remember walking into the locker room the first day last year and you don't know who the players are," Yeo said. "It's a different story when they don't have their uniforms on, so you're trying to introduce yourself and figure out who's who. That was obviously quite the process to go through, to come in and learn a new organization and their personalities.
"This year is a much different story. I feel much more confident and comfortable with this group, and I feel like we're ready to hit the ground running."
The Blues will open their first training camp under Yeo on Sept. 15. He's looking forward to finally having time to install his own systems, something he wasn't afforded after replacing Ken Hitchcock on the fly in February. The club did go 22-8-2 in 32 regular-season games under Yeo and play two rounds into the postseason despite only limited tweaks, so he believes that bodes well.
"I'm excited for the start of camp to introduce and add on to what we introduced last year," Yeo said. "The biggest part of our job, we always want to provide the players with the X's and O's, and give them the chance to go out and be on the same page is very important. We started to incorporate some of the way we want to play _ pace of play and little more of a speed mentality and the structure of the defensive-zone coverage _ last year. Some of those things we brought in last year, but given the way the schedule was toward the end of the year, we didn't bring in everything."
The Blues will also be working in some new players at the start of the season, and it will be up to Yeo and his new coaching staff to see where they fit. The most notable is Brayden Schenn, who was acquired from Philadelphia in exchange for Jori Lehtera.
"The Schenn trade was huge for us," Yeo said. "I really believe that that was a great acquisition, real strong."
Yeo has had plenty of time to think about how he might use his new players such as Schenn. He recently drove 15 hours alone from his cottage in Canada to Minnesota before making the eight-hour leg to St. Louis, and whenever an idea came to him on the road, he spoke it into his cell phone.
"The iPhone is a tremendous device, how you can pull up 'Siri' and take notes," Yeo said. "I'm sure some of it doesn't make any sense. But I'm an idea guy _ I like to throw out ideas and bounce them off people and see what sticks."
The idea heading into camp is that Schenn will center a line with Jaden Schwartz and Alexander Steen. That allows the club to keep Vladimir Tarasenko with Paul Stastny, who would probably be complemented by Vladimir Sobotka.
"When we finished the season last year, 'Stas' was our No. 1 centerman," Yeo said. "He's going to be real motivated again this year, but I believe that he'll have competition there."
Along with Stastny and Schenn, the Blues plan to try Robby Fabbri at center, and they also have Steen, Sobotka, Zach Sanford and Ivan Barbashev who can play in the middle.
"We have options here and we're going to use the time in training camp to try and do things," Yeo said. "If something works off the bat, then we might give it a little bit more time. But we're also willing, either through the course of a game or game to game, to mix and match."
Defensively, the Blues' top four seems to be set with Alex Pietrangelo, Jay Bouwmeester, Colton Parayko and Joel Edmundson. Carl Gunnarsson and Robert Bortuzzo are back and the club has signed Nate Prosser to add another veteran to a group that includes prospects Jordan Schmaltz, Vince Dunn, Jake Walman and Petteri Lindbohm.
"There's going to be competition," Yeo said. "I know that (Prosser) can play in the league and we have some guys that I know have the potential to play in the league. What I like is that (the prospects) all bring something unique to the table, whether it's a defensive mindset or an offensive threat. All of those players have their own identity, and it's going to be up to them to come in and show that that fits in with our group."
But before the competition begins, Yeo has one other priority to take care of in early September.
"The biggest job in our business, I really believe, is the relationships and getting the most out of the players," he said. "I feel like I've gotten to know the players quite well and I think that they've gotten to know me. But for me, it's much more about how I'm going to use the coming couple of weeks before camp to meet with players individually and set the table _ talk to them and see what their goals are and what my expectations for them are.
"One of the keys for us is, we know that we can win the division and we know that we can not make the playoffs. We'll be in a good spot if we take care of our own business. That means that every day we just focus on what's in front of us. We've had some success, but the only thing that matters is what's right in front of us. If we continue to do that throughout the course of the season, with the group that we have, we'll be fine."
