Join Blues beat writer Matthew DeFranks for his live chat – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Matthew DeFranks: Good afternoon. The Blues are 33-29-3 and on pace for 87 points. They are eight points back of Vegas for the final wild card in the Western Conference entering tonight’s game against Los Angeles. Let’s get to some questions.

Schlay: Mathew. Great article on Dean today. I was puzzled why they would bring up a Center that had so few points in 50 games. I believe the article answered that and thank you. How do you feel about putting a guy in at this level when he just communicated how his confidence was tested making the jump to the AHL (playing against bigger and more experienced men), While he is starting to feel his feet for the first time I don’t see promoting a potential 3rd or 4th line center before he’s ready. Why? How do we feel this can be productive to his development. This opinion is based on my extensive experience in this area (OK.. I watch games on TV)

Matthew DeFranks: These are really good questions. I’ve always thought that players need to be ready for the next step before you make them take it. Perhaps the last few months have given the Blues enough evidence to trust that Dean is taking that step right now. I do think they’ll try to ease him into whatever role they end up giving him.

Right or wrong, we’re seeing them do it with Zack Bolduc right now, giving him limited ice time and a ton of offensive-zone starts. Now, we can all hope there would be more power-play time for him at this point, but they are taking it slow with Bolduc. I’d imagine a similar philosophy with Dean whenever he does make his debut.

Barry-Blues Fan in Orlando: Matt, THANK YOU for these chats and the expertise you share with us Blues fan(atics). Matt, in your conversations with Blues management do you sense we will start seeing a major call up of talent from Springfield to see what we have in our future? I have to think DB and Army realize the playoffs are not in our future this year, so why not play our farm hands? If you speak to BD and Army ask them if we will see Bolduk on the first PP and on the first two lines. The Duke has a wicked one-timer, if you want to see more PP goals he needs to be used this way. What say you?

Matthew DeFranks: Every time I’ve asked Drew Bannister about getting Zack Bolduc more minutes, it always comes back to easing him in. They want to keep him away from the defensive zone, so that leads to 5v5 line-juggling and sheltered shifts. They don’t want to “overburden” him, so they don’t put him on the power play. At some point, they’ll have to give him a look. I wonder if the solution is taking Sundqvist off the second PP, moving Saad to the net-front, Schenn to the bumper and installing Bolduc on the flank.

As for playing the young kids, they really only have one more recall they can make from the AHL the rest of the season. Teams are allowed four post-trade deadline non-emergency recalls. The Blues have already used three of them on Bolduc (paper transactions on trade deadline day), Matthew Kessel and Zach Dean.

In theory, they could bring up one more guy, but you’d think it would be a young-ish prospect with an NHL future at some point. And down there, that really only means … Leo Loof or Vadim Zherenko???