The St. Louis Blues found themselves in a difficult position when Brian Elliott returned from injury. The team had recently signed Martin Brodeur to a one-year contract due to the assumption that Elliott would be out for a decent chunk of time and that Jake Allen wouldn’t be able to hold down the fort on his own until Elliott returned.
Initially, the Brodeur experiment seemed to be working well which resulted in some trade rumors involving Elliott. Those rumors dried up rather quickly as Brodeur’s weaknesses and age were exposed while Allen failed to inspire confidence in his first legitimate crack at the starting job.
Now that Elliott is back and playing well, it’s clear (as if it weren’t before) that he’s the team’s best netminder. What should the team do with the duo of Brodeur and Allen? Considering Allen is the team’s long-term answer in goal and Brodeur isn’t movable and still provides some nice veteran experience should Elliott go down again, the Blues are comfortable using three goalies for the foreseeable future.
Ken Hitchcock spoke about the situation with Fox Sports Midwest:
“I think as long as it doesn’t bother the goalies, there’s a lot that Marty brings to this team. It’s a real revealing situation when you bring in players of winning pedigree and the way they look at the competition, the way they look at the game, the way they look at improvement on adjustments.
I don’t think it’s troublesome now. I think our focus right now is on Elliott, keeping him up and running and then the other two guys are going to have to wait their turn.”
Using three goalies makes a lot of sense for the Blues considering that Allen has looked pretty shaky at times in the crease. The Blues hope Allen will be the starter of the future, but Allen’s .899 save percentage hasn’t given the team much confidence.
Hitchcock is correct that rolling with three goaltenders isn’t a problem right now, but it may very well become one in the future. Should the Blues suffer a few more injuries or should they need to roll with another position player or defenseman, suddenly three goaltenders seems like one too many.
