This post was originally published at TheHockeyWriters.com.

Either the Blues picked the perfect time to hit a small snag or they picked the most inopportune time to not be playing like the first overall team in the NHL.  How is it that it can be either extreme?

It really depends on if you are a glass-full or glass-empty kind of person.

The optimist would look at the Blues’ recent play and say that it came at a good time because the Blues pulled away from the rest of the league then hit a minor slump.  After a win in Columbus on March 11 that capped off a four-game winning streak, the St. Louis hockey club found themselves three points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks for the NHL-lead.  After a shootout loss in Chicago and a 3-1 win in Tampa Bay on March 17 (with a loss to Carolina in the middle), the Blues were the first team to reach the 100-point plateau and held a commanding five-point lead over the New York Rangers atop the standings.  There was some room for the Blues to have a few slip-up games.

The pessimist does not see it this way.  Even though the Blues are still on top of the leaderboard with 101 points, this is no time to be losing games.  Teams want to head into the playoffs with as much momentum as possible.  Going into the NHL playoffs with a few recent losses can hurt any team’s chances of getting past the first round.

This is especially true in the Western Conference where only three points separate seventh and eleventh place.  These teams are battling hard every day; whoever grabs the seventh and eighth seeds will have plenty of momentum to carry them through the first round of the playoffs.

I will take a different outlook than both of these views.  There are still seven games left in the season for the Blues and four of them will be played at Scottrade Center.  This is plenty of time for the Blues to turn it around.

The Blues are in the midst of a seven-game road trip, which is the longest the Blues have gone without playing at Scottrade Center all season.  Currently on the trip, the Blues have posted a 2-2-2 record, snatching 6 of a possible 12 points.  The most troubling part in this may not be the fact that they have half of the possible points, but the defense has not been as strong as they have been all season. 

This post was originally published at TheHockeyWriters.com.

The anxiety has subsided as the nerve-racking part is already in the bag for youngster Jaden Schwartz.

Schwartz played in his first NHL game Saturday in Tampa Bay.  He also notched his first NHL goal in the first period, which stood to be the game-winning goal in a 3-1 victory for the St. Louis Blues.

It didn’t take Schwartz a very long time to overcome the pressure of scoring an NHL goal.

"It was pretty special," said Schwartz. "It's something you dream about. I was happy I could come in and help get the win. Getting the first goal was exciting."

Schwartz, 19, had a very eventful couple of days.  He played in his last game for Colorado College last Saturday, which was a loss to Michigan Technological University that swept Colorado College out of the playoffs.  Schwartz immediately began discussions with the St. Louis Blues, the team that drafted him 14^th overall in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft.  He signed a three-year entry level deal Monday and met his new teammates and coaching staff in Chicago Tuesday.  Schwartz practiced with his team as soon as he arrived, but was told that he would not play that night when the Blues would battle the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center.

Schwartz continued to travel with the team to Carolina but was held out of the lineup yet again Thursday when the Blues took on the Carolina Hurricanes.  Something happened in this game that allowed Schwartz to step in Saturday in Tampa Bay.

This post was originally published at TheHockeyWriters.com.

St. Louis is not your typical hockey hotbed.  Players such as Cal Heeter are looking to disprove that belief.

Heeter, born in St. Louis Missouri on November 2, 1988, was inked to a two-year, two-way contract last week by the Philadelphia Flyers.  He played for The Ohio State Buckeyes throughout his four-year college career.  Before that, Heeter was a member of the St. Louis Junior Blues in 2005-06.  He then moved on to play for the Wichita Falls Wildcats and the St. Louis Bandits, both of the North-American Hockey League (NAHL).

Most notably for St. Louisans, Heeter attended the Christian Brothers College High School (CBC) where he was the starting goaltender his sophomore and junior year.  Heeter won the Mid-States High School Championship as the backup in 2004 and as the starter in 2005.

Heeter left CBC his senior year to pursue better opportunities in Wichita Falls, Texas.  He attended Rider High School while playing for the Wildcats to get some experience in the NAHL.

“It was a tough decision for me [to leave CBC],” Heeter said in a telephone interview Sunday afternoon.  “I liked that school, the team and the guys that I had been playing with so much.  I felt like it was an opportunity that I had to take to leave and try to further my career at a different level.”

Heeter was only away from St. Louis for the duration of the NAHL season; he returned to St. Louis to receive his high school diploma in the Spring of 2007. He could no longer attend CBC, so Heeter finished his senior year at Ritenour High School, where his father, Jack, teaches business classes. 

Cal moved on to play for the St. Louis Bandits, also of the NAHL, after graduating from Ritenour.  He found even more success there, winning the Robertson Cup Championship as the NAHL Champions.

This post was originally published at TheHockeyWriters.com.

When the Director of Amateur Scouting of an NHL club heads to the NHL Entry Draft in June, he hopes to accomplish something that weekend that is a lot rarer than people may think.

Select a quality NHL player in the 1^st round.

Every round is important; the Detroit Red Wings are proof of that.  Just look at perennial all-stars Pavel Datsyuk (selected in the 6^th round, 171^st overall, in the 1998 NHL Draft) and Henrik Zetterberg (selected in the 7^th round, 210^th overall, in the 1999 NHL Draft). 

However, the 1^st round is where teams expect to succeed with their draft selections.  These are the highly touted players; the ones that are expected to make the jump to the NHL faster than anyone else in the draft.  Most importantly, these are the guys that are supposed to be the best players on your NHL roster for years to come.

Currently, NHL scouts are drooling over what has happened this season with the St. Louis Blues.

Here is the current defensive team for the Blues and how they were drafted:

Carlo Colaiacovo – Selected in the 1^st round, 17th overall, of the 2001 NHL Entry Draft (Toronto)

Ian Cole – Selected in the 1^st round, 18th overall, of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft (St. Louis)

Kent Huskins* – Selected in the 6^th round, 156^th overall, of the 1998 NHL Entry Draft (Chicago)

Barret Jackman – Selected in the 1^st round, 17th overall, of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft (St. Louis)

Alex Pietrangelo – Selected in the 1^st round, 4th overall, of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft (St. Louis)

Roman Polak – Selected in the 6^th round, 180^th overall, of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft (St. Louis)

Kris Russell* – Selected in the 3^rd round, 67^th overall, of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft (Columbus)

Kevin Shattenkirk – Selected in the 1^st round, 14th overall, of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft (Colorado)