What We Learned: Dangerous move for St. Louis Blues

(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

When Alex Steen signed his current contract in December 2013, he had never scored 25 goals in a season, nor had he cleared 52 points.

That’s not to say he wasn’t a good player, because he very much was one. But the idea that you would lock up a guy for three years when he would be 30, 31, and 32 — and give him $5.8 million AAV — halfway through his career year at 29 seemed dicey.

Steen still is a good player. Over the past five years he’s a strong relative possession player on a really good possession team. Two years into his three-year deal, maybe you say he’s been worth it for them.

But how much longer can that possibly be the case? And how does Doug Armstrong justify giving him four more years at nearly the same freight, which he did on Friday?

Because here’s some iffy news for the Blues: Steen seems to be dropping off in a hurry already, with a full year before his new deal even kicks in.

First and foremost, let’s just point out that Steen is already injured a lot; he’s missed almost half a season’s worth of games since the season in which he signed his current contract, and last year missed 15 games. The likelihood that he somehow straightens his health problems out in his age-33-through-36 seasons seems low.

Moreover, his goals per game has declined by about half in the past three seasons, sliding from 0.49 in his career year — the highest of any season by a wide margin — to just 0.25 this past year. Assist numbers remain more or less in the ballpark, but his primary assists have fallen off while secondaries are on the rise. And secondary assist numbers are less repeatable than primary ones, for obvious reasons.

Then there’s the problem of his possession capabilities. Steen is largely viewed as a high-quality two-way center, right? Well, both his raw and adjusted possession numbers have fallen off from 2013-14 (plus-5.42 percent) to 2014-15 (plus-1.65 percent) to last year (minus-1.65 percent). And most concerning, that comes as Ken Hitchcock has throttled back the difficulty of his usage a little bit.

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Of the 33 goals he scored that one career-best season, 24 — TWENTY-FOUR! — came in the first 34 games of the season. And almost immediately after re-upping (as in, “within three days”) he got a concussion that held him out of the lineup for nearly a month. Since then, apart from the perpetually more underwhelming performances, he’s also racked up a host of upper- and lower-body injuries. In fact, there is speculation that he won’t be ready to start the season on time again this year.

Again, this is all a full season before the new contract kicks in. Back when Steen signed his deal in 2013, I wrote that it seemed a little too based on his insanely hot start to the season but that in the end it would probably be worth it. I’m not really sure that ended up being the case.

As you might expect for any player over the age of 30, his productivity has declined somewhat in terms of goals, though his assist numbers continue to stay strong (one imagines playing a big chunk of the last three seasons with Vladimir Tarasenko helps). And that degradation of his possession numbers is really hurting the Blues at this point. His relative expected-goals-for percentage has dropped from plus-4.4 to minus-2.1 in three seasons. That’s not a trend that’s likely to reverse itself given that he’s hurt all the time and 32 already.

The good news when that contract was first signed was that the Blues avoided going long-term on it. It seemed to take into account that the hot start was unsustainable, but that Steen was a possession juggernaut on par with the very best players in the league, and also that he scored a lot. And over the past two seasons — the first two of the current contract — he’s tied for 38th in the league in scoring, having scored at least 52 points in each year. (But to go from 24 goals to 17 is worrisome, right?)

So it’s entirely possible that, all things considered, the fact that Steen has another year left on his existing deal before this new four-year extension kicks in might end up being a problem.

Again, if the benefit of signing that deal was that you got a very good player in his early 30s at $5.8 million AAV for only three years. In theory, it allowed you to scale back his cap hit for his age-33 season and beyond, if you wanted to keep him. But when you say “scale back” in this context, you typically don’t mean “by $50,000.”

Before signing this contract, you really needed to seriously consider a number of factors. That he can’t stay healthy for a full season already. That his goal production is declining. That he has become a negative relative possession player within two seasons. That he still has one more to go on his current deal. And with all that in mind, the odds that he’s anywhere near the kind of player he’s currently perceived to be — wrongly, I would argue — by the time he’s even 34, when he still has two years remaining, seem very, very low.

When he signed his current deal, I thought it was a little rich but pretty reasonable. This new deal is one of those “could end up being among the worst in the league” bad contracts if he keeps trending in the current direction. The good news is that possession numbers are more sustainable than scoring, and Steen has really only had one bad season in that regard in the past six years. The problem is that bad season was last season, when he was 31 and injured for 15 games, and he’s already a question mark to start the year.

The fact is that very, very few NHLers, regardless of their quality, continue to be meaningful contributors past their age-35 seasons. By that time, Steen will be signed up for two more at basically no discount from his current deal. It’s hard to justify that at all, especially given the diminishing returns that are already coming in.

There are just so many reasons to be skeptical about this deal a year before it starts, especially for a budget team like St. Louis. Because it’s not like Colton Parayko doesn’t need a new contract after this season, because he’s going to cost a hell of a lot of money. And it’s not like they’re going to need to sign somebody to replace Paul Stastny, whose deal is up in 2018.

Steen was an extremely underrated player for a very long time in this league. And it’s very likely he just became one of the most overpaid.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Man, still no contracts for Lindholm or Rakell. I understand the World Cup is happening and so on but the longer this stretches on the more I’m concerned they’re gonna Jacob Trouba this thing.

Arizona Coyotes: Hey remember the whole new-new-new Coyotes arena drama? What happened with that?

Boston Bruins: This mega sucks.

Buffalo Sabres: Robin Lehner apparently lost some weight this summer. Hopefully that means he’s going to stay healthy this season.

Calgary Flames: Oh so the Flames are doing that Red Wings thing where they say, “No one should make more than our captain/All-Star defenseman.” Well, Johnny Gaudreau ain’t taking $6.75 million or less, nor should he. In the next week or so he’ll probably sign for $7.5 million and everyone will go, “Sounds about right.”

Carolina Hurricanes: Jaccob Slavin is apparently prepared for all outcomes as he moves into his second season: “The sophomore slump is obviously something that happens to some and doesn’t happen to others.” Thanks Jaccob!

Chicago: Oh yeah they really have a lot of time to be patient with their young, new additions.

Colorado Avalanche: Hoooooo boy this is a bad headline both in concept and execution. Don’t tell Gabby!

Columbus Blue Jackets: It would be hard for Columbus to not-improve on last season, but you know Torts is gonna give ‘er the ol’ college try.

Dallas Stars: No Lindy! Don’t build up expectations for the goaltending! It can only end in tears!

Detroit Red Wings: Dylan Larkin is moving into the middle, potentially centering Andreas Athanasiou and Anthony Mantha. Well, at least they’ll be fast.

Edmonton Oilers: Ah it’s a little early for this.

Florida Panthers: When you’re old, you gotta do a lot more work to prepare for the NHL season. So that’s what Roberto Luongo and Jaromir Jagr did.

Las Vegas No-Names: Okay now they’re just trolling everybody. Friggin’ Las Vegas Late Knights over here.

Los Angeles Kings: You really hope it works out for Devin Setoguchi in LA. Dude’s been through a lot.

Minnesota Wild: Boudreau wants to play faster, and I’m wondering whether the team’s best players are physically capable of it.

Montreal Canadiens: Alex Radulov is gonna have to carry what could be a hefty load offensively.

Nashville Predators: The only thing that might hold the Preds back this year, honestly, is if Pekka Rinne has another bad season. And I wouldn’t bet against that.

New Jersey Devils: A potentially pissed-off Taylor Hall might be bad news for the Metro division.

New York Islanders: The Islanders are making it easier to get to home games this year. Next up: Making it easier to see home games once you get there.

New York Rangers: Probably should have blown it up, though.

Ottawa Senators: Ah jeez, not a great start.

Philadelphia Flyers: As if people needed more reasons to dislike the Flyers, huh?

Pittsburgh Penguins: Congrats to Marc-Andre Fleury on securing the starting job on opening night.

San Jose Sharks: I’m pretty much of two minds on “Should the Sharks have high expectations?” On the one hand they’re really damn good. On the other a team with this many important players on the wrong side of 30 doesn’t seem like the best bet to repeat a long playoff run.

St. Louis Blues: Yeah it’s going to be vital to figure out who’s going to fill in some holes left by veteran departures including Brouwer and Backes. And, like, ASAP.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Okay so the Bolts are on the home stretch when it comes to re-signing Nikita Kucherov. Really interested to see what that contract looks like.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Hmm, great. Guess the signing was good.

Vancouver Canucks: Potentially having two rookie defensemen on this particular roster doesn’t necessarily seem like a good idea.

Washington Capitals: Still possible that Brett Connolly can play. But this is probably his last chance to prove it.

Winnipeg Jets: The fact that Trouba asked out before the draft and we never heard a word about it until now, after camps open, tells you how much water the local media carries for Jets ownership.

Play of the Weekend

What a damn play. Shout out to ref cam.

Gold Star Award

Hey this Marchand kid can play, huh?

Minus of the Weekend

I’m still trying to wade through that Dean Lombardi quote about why he hired Tortorella.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “meldelaget” really wants to stick it to Kevin Hayes.

Zuccarello+Hayes+Lindberg for panarin?

Signoff

Vera said that?

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)