The St. Louis Blues Thomas Conundrum
By Stephen Ground October 22nd, 2018
The St. Louis Blues played their seventh game of the season on Saturday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and for the second straight game, top prospect Robert Thomas was scratched from the lineup. Despite the Blues’ victory, it’s a concerning trend for the 19-year-old, who was consistently
ranked amongst the league’s top prospects entering the season.
The repeated scratches have led some fans to question whether head coach Mike Yeo is falling into
an old pattern. Yeo has frequently been criticized for mismanaging young talents, and some fear that Thomas will be just another victim of that mismanagement as long as Yeo remains the coach in St. Louis. But is that a fair evaluation of either Thomas or Yeo? Or is there more to the story?
Thomas’ Season
So far, Thomas has played in five of the team’s seven games, averaging under nine minutes (8:51) a game. That number would be even lower but for the fact that Thomas was deployed for 11:12 in the first game of the season against the Winnipeg Jets. Thomas has understandably been relegated to a fourth line role, as
the Blues’ busy offseason brought in two centers in Ryan O’Reilly and Tyler Bozak.
But early in the season, there were hints that a fourth line role wouldn’t mean paltry minutes for players like Thomas. He and his young line mates Sammy Blais and Ivan Barbashev were expected to form a “new look” fourth line that would be given 10-plus minutes a game and would be used in a more significant and dynamic role than a typical fourth line.
That has not been the case. In his limited minutes, Thomas has gathered only one point, an assist, and has posted a very poor CF% of 36.4. Still, it’s difficult to know whether that’s due to a lackluster start from Thomas himself, or the roles and opportunities he’s been deployed in.
Whatever the cause, Yeo decided after five games that Thomas needed a break, and has scratched him for the first two games of the Canada trip. The coach hopes that Thomas’ time in the press box will help him build confidence, something that may be lacking with an important deadline.
Thomas’ Dilemma
Like many 18 and 19-year-old players in the NHL, Thomas finds himself somewhat handicapped by
a pair of rules about young players. First, the Canadian Hockey League (CHL, the umbrella organization that oversees all three Canadian major junior hockey leagues) and the NHL have an agreement which states that any player whose rights belong to a CHL team must play for that CHL team unless his NHL team wishes to retain him. This means that Thomas is not eligible to play for the Blues’ AHL affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage, this season.
But another rule makes things even trickier for Thomas and the Blues. NHL teams are given some flexibility with “the slide rule,” which allows them to “slide” a player’s contract back to his CHL team (or another affiliate such as a European team or the AHL club) as long as the player does not exceed nine games played in the NHL. Sliding the contract back allows the NHL team to not burn a year of the player’s contract, a huge value in a salary cap league.
https://thehockeywriters.com/st-louis-blues-robert-thomas-decision/