(Get) A Sporting Life

Sheesh. This is getting to be a habit with the Blues : Jay McClement and Erik Johnson are going to Colorado. Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk are coming to St. Louis. Fans of both teams think they got screwed. Well, I don't know about screwed , but it certainly seems it the Blues who have taken the far bigger risk here. Of the four players involved only Johnson has the potential to be a dominant player in this league. If he develops into what the Blues originally saw in him we may be kicking ourselves for years. In Stewart the Blues finally have added some offensive help. He's a big strong kid who has feasted on the Blues in the past. I will be interested in getting more of a look at him. Shattenkirk is a rookie who is having the customary ups and downs rookies have in this league. Still, after moving EJ and Brewer in consecutive days the Blues were smart in adding a D-man. Losing McClement hurts me. Silent Jay was my favorite Blue in this group, a role he took over when Ste...

As if losing to the Red Wings wasn't bad enough, the Blues are now looking at another possible injury to a main cog in their lineup : A knee injury suffered by Erik Johnson is expected to keep the Blues defenseman out of tonight's game against Los Angeles, but club officials were reluctant Wednesday night to look past the next 24 hours. Johnson left the team's game Wednesday seven minutes into the first period, after he was tangled up with Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk in the neutral zone. Johnson got up slowly, headed to the dressing room and didn't return. It appeared that he was favoring his right knee, which is the one he had surgery on two years ago to repair a torn ligament and caused him to miss the entire 2008-09 season. But there were hints of relief that it might not be a re-aggravation of Johnson's prior injury. "Well, at least he's not dead!" I'm sorry, but it has gotten to the point where it is impossible to see the "glass half full...

Don't think I'm not paying attention to the St. Louis Blues. Oh, I am : The St. Louis Blues are working on another late-season surge. Paul Kariya scored twice, combining with Brad Boyes for a pair of goals during a 17-second span of the first period, and the Blues extended their winning streak to a season-best five games with a 6-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Thursday night. Alexander Steen, Patrik Berglund and T.J. Oshie added goals for the Blues, who've scored 23 goals during the five-game stretch. Last season, the Blues closed with a 9-4-1 surge to earn a playoff spot. "I'm new to the situation, but I'm aware of what happened last year," said coach Davis Payne, who took over for the fired Andy Murray on Jan. 2. "This is a new (season). We know exactly what we have to do and it's good for us to have that type of experience to know it's possible." Chris Mason made 29 saves for the Blues, who boosted their road record to 18-9-4 in t...

From STLToday : Blues defenseman Erik Johnson has a torn ACL in his right knee and will undergo surgery in a couple of weeks, a source has told the Post-Dispatch. Johnson, 20, is expected to be sidelined six to nine months after injuring his knee in a golf-cart incident last week at the Lake of the Ozarks. Obviously, this sucks. But, the Blues were not gonna make a serious run at the playoffs based largely upon contributions from Johnson. We have depth on defense, and Johnson was gonna get injured like this sooner or later. I'd rather have it happen now when he's not the main cog on the blueline than in three years when we are poised for a deep playoff run. Who knows, maybe Johnson being sidelined will allow a player like Junland to make the team. I mean, we already know Johnson's gonna be a stud in this league, if we get a couple more promising young players to step up life will only get better.

Courage Blues fans : Blues defenseman Erik Johnson injured his right knee in a golf-related incident on Wednesday and will miss the start of training camp, which begins Friday. He will be re-evaluated before Tuesday's preseason game against Dallas, according to team president John Davidson. "This is a hard one to believe, but it's the God's honest truth . . . he was playing golf and he pulled the golf cart up to where his ball was," Davidson said. "And he took his left leg and put it on the ground and the right leg, he sort of reached back and put it on the brake. A lot of us do it . . . I do it all the time myself. As he pushed the brake, he missed a little bit, his leg got caught under there and he slipped and that wrenched his knee. ". . . There's swelling there. We're not going to speculate on this thing because we don't know. And we're going to have everything hopefully cleared up by Tuesday as to what it is and if there's a leng...