For all the positives Jay Bouwmeester brings, there’s one negative he’s always associated with:
Never making the playoffs.
Now, the 29-year0ld rearguard is hoping to help his new team -- the St. Louis Blues -- into the postseason. The Blues currently hold the eighth and final playoff spot in the West, which is good enough for JayBo.
He just wants to get in.
“I really think they have the team of anyone that can put a string together, get in the playoffs and with that experience from last year, do that much better,” Bouwmeester told Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“Nowadays you’ve just got to get in. I viewed St. Louis as comparable to LA.”
Bouwmeester, of course, is referencing the 2012 Stanley Cup Champion Los Angeles Kings, who slogged through an uneven regular season and got in as the No. 8 seed in the West.
Only one other playoff team (Florida) had fewer wins, but that didn’t stop the Kings from getting white-hot in the postseason, racking up a 16-4 record en route to the first Cup in franchise history.
The Blues, meanwhile, finished second in the West with 49 wins, but were swept by LA in the second round.
While the team is hoping for a longer run this time, Bouwmeester would probably be thrilled to get that far.
This season, Bouwmeester played his 735th regular season game without a playoff appearance, breaking the career mark set by ex-NHLer Guy Charron -- 734 games, from 1969-81 -- without getting to the postseason.
While that dubious record likely hangs on him, Bouwmeester feels he’s joined something special in St. Louis.
“They’re a tough team to play against,” he said. “They’re a big team that can skate, just a team that is solid all the way through lineup.”