{"id":26303,"date":"2020-04-03T17:21:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T21:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26303"},"modified":"2020-04-03T17:21:31","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T21:21:31","slug":"a-great-season-for-auroras-rob-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/a-great-season-for-auroras-rob-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"A great season for Aurora’s Rob Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Robert Belardi <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the season was halted due to COVID-19, Aurora native\nand centreman for the St. Louis Blues Robert Thomas was showing signs of\nimprovement in his second season in the NHL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stanley Cup Champion recorded eight points in his last\n10 games, including an 11-point month in February alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His lone goal in that spell came against the Chicago\nBlackhawks at home, back on February 25 to bring the Blues within one goal in\nthe second period. A cross-ice pass from David Perron found Thomas alone in\nfront of goal and the 20-year-old roofed the puck short side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total this year, Thomas has recorded 10 goals and 32\nassists, along with a plus-minus rating of nine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recorded nine goals and 24 assists in his rookie season\nlast year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s a quick skater, an agile forward with a nose for the\npuck and vision like a hawk down the ice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to SB Nation writer Dan Buffa, written on March 6,\nThomas belongs in St. Louis for a long time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Thomas was almost traded from St. Louis in exchange\nfor Ryan O\u2019Reilly to Buffalo on July 1, 2018. How different the roster would\nhave been if he left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, the Blues valued him more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 20th<\/sup> overall draft pick in 2017 adds depth in\nthe centre position that has O\u2019Reilly and Brayden Schenn in the second and\nfirst line above him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is the third-line centre with Zach Sanford and Jordan\nKyrou, as per Daily Faceoff, and is suiting that role exceptionally well for\nhead coach Craig Berube. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a reason why he helped team Canada lift the gold\nmedal in the IIHF World Junior Championships in 2018. There\u2019s a reason why he\nis playing well in the NHL now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the Blues, the defending Stanley Cup champions are\nfirst overall in the Western Conference and in the Central division. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Colorado Avalanche stand two points behind the Blues for\nthe top spot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team also ranks first in the League for most goals\nscored by defencemen for the second time in the 52-year history with 45 goals.\nOnly the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers are one goal behind the\nBlues for the top spot in that regard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know what they say: Defence wins championships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Blues rank in 5th<\/sup> for goals allowed, 4th<\/sup>\nin shots against and 6th<\/sup> in penalties. Behind the back line of\ncaptain and King City native Alex Pietrangelo, Justin Faulk, Colton Parayko and\nMarco Scandella is great goaltending from Jordan Binnington. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Richmond Hill native is 30-13-7 with 2.56 goals against\naverage and a .912 save percentage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, in his second year in the league, Binnington has not\nshown signs of slowing down either, ever since being awarded the starting\nposition for the team last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be a longer wait to see if and\/or when the NHL\nyear resumes. Until then, Thomas and the Blues have had an exceptional year\nthus far in their title defence. <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robert Belardi Before the season was halted due to COVID-19, Aurora native and centreman for the St. Louis Blues Robert Thomas was showing signs of improvement in his second season in the NHL. The Stanley Cup Champion recorded eight points in his last 10 games, including an 11-point month in February alone. His lone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Qf","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 07:04:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}