Lynn Worthy | Post-Dispatch
Sports columnist
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The Blues have officially waved goodbye to their rebuilding. Sure, president of hockey operations/general manager Doug Armstrong remains a bit cagey when he acknowledges the rebuild has mostly concluded, but that’s because he knows his team doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Other teams haven’t stood still while the Blues reloaded.
However, the fact that the Blues extended veteran defenseman Cam Fowler speaks volumes. The three-year extension with an average annual value of $6.1 million makes a clear statement that the Blues think they’re close to becoming a contending team again.
They’re not eyeing five more years of getting in position to compete.
Fowler, 33, signed on to stay through the 2028-29 season for a chance to win. Comfortability and family played a huge role in the decision, but he didn’t leave Anaheim just to commit to St. Louis as a nice place to play out the final years of his prime.
“It was just important to hear kind of their vision for the next few years, especially for me signing up — you know I still have another year here — so it’ll be three years after this next coming season,” Fowler said of his conversations with Armstrong and Armstrong’s successor as general manager after this season Alexander Steen.
“So that’s a good chunk of time. Just making sure that the vision with the team lined up with kind of how I saw things. It certainly did. We have a team here that we feel has the opportunity to compete and do something special, and I’m really happy to be a part of that.”
Remember, Fowler spent the first 14 years of his hockey career with the Anaheim Ducks. Then things reached a point where the team started going younger, particularly at his position, and he became an impediment to giving those young guys playing time.
Fowler wouldn’t commit to another situation without considering the chances that he might face a similar situation.
“When you’re thinking about a decision like this, you have to kind of plan two or three years along the road,” Fowler said. “You have to think about those things. So looking at all those pieces that we have in place and being excited about that from my perspective, it made my decision very easy.
“And talking with Army and Steener, just where we want this team to be —from my perspective and from theirs — was just something that was aligned in the whole process. … I’m on the second half of my career here, and I want to be playing meaningful hockey games with a group that I enjoy coming to the rink and being around.”
Fowler hasn’t yet reached the phase of his career where he has to settle into a lesser role. He thrived after he joined the Blues and played in Jim Montgomery’s style of play.
Fowler led Blues defensemen with 36 points (nine goals, 27 assists) despite joining the team on Dec. 14. He ranked 10th among NHL defensemen in points from Dec. 23 through the end of the season.
In the playoffs against the Winnipeg Jets, he became the first defenseman in franchise history to register 10 points in a playoff series.
At last spring’s end of season news conference, Armstrong said, “I’m hoping we have turned the tide on the re-whatever and we’re starting to become a competitive team that has expectations, honest expectations, reasonable expectations of success.”
When asked, during the summer, about being done with the rebuild, Armstrong hedged and said, “I don’t know if we’re out of it.” He described the dynamic within his club as having the “ability to grow.”
In early September, Armstrong characterized the team as in the process of getting better, but also recognized that they’re “closer to the finished product now than we were a year ago at this time.”
Understandably, the Blues should avoid any boastful proclamations or projections of future grandeur.
Coming off an eighth-place finish in the Western Conference last year and a first-round playoff exit — they should’ve advanced, but that’s spilled milk — it would be reckless to enter this season talking as if they were a couple caroms of the puck away from the Stanley Cup finals.
And when you’re relying on a lot of young players, their performance susceptible to wildly variant ups and downs, it’s also not wise to speak in absolutes.
That said, the Blues are moving forward as though they’ve got a core group and a style of play they will build around and upon moving forward. They’ve got veterans strategically placed so as to allow the younger players to come along at their own pace, and they’re even building in room financially to secure those young players for the long-term.
Armstrong said they signed Fowler keeping in mind that they wanted to make sure they had room to also sign restricted free agents Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, who’s current deals are up after this season.
Based on the average annual value of his deal and the NHL salary cap set to rise, Fowler will take up a smaller percentage of the team’s cap next season and the following season than he currently does.
None of that signifies a team that’s uncertain about its direction.
They’re not running out inexperienced players on a nightly basis to evaluate them and let them take lumps. They’re not merely buying time until they can get the next superstar in the draft or until their new young hope is ready to join the lineup.
The Blues actions tell us they think they’re geared up to climb the ladder in the Western Conference the next few seasons, and they’ve identified the guys they want to take with them on the journey. Fowler’s extension just underscores that fact.
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Lynn Worthy | Post-Dispatch
Sports columnist
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