Who was the standout player on the best Blues team to not win a championship?

Yesterday we took a look at the best Blues team to not win a championship, the 1999-2000 line-up. That team was a sum of its parts, certainly - it was stacked with excellent players and performances at every position, but its strength was a testament to the cohesive unit that team was made up of.

It’s difficult to choose who the best player on the team was. It’s easy to toss out Chris Pronger’s 14G, 48A performance as proof positive that he is the best player on the team. After all, he did win the Hart Trophy that year as the player most valuable to his team.

Can you point to Pavol Demitra’s 28 goals and 75 points on the season? Pierre Turgeon wasn’t far behind him (26 G, 40A) and neither was Michal Handzus in the goal department (25 G 28A).

As an aside, those three guys were the top three centers on the team. Maybe this discussion should be about the standout position, not the standout player.

Of course, you also have Al MacInnis with 11G, 28A, who with Chris Pronger formed a dynamic duo on defense.

Despite the goal allowed that ended the Blues’ post-season hopes, it’s difficult to leave Roman Turek out of the discussion. A 1.95 GAA in 67 games played and a 42-15-9 record isn’t anything to sneeze at, especially when you consider seven of those wins were shutouts.

It’s tough to narrow it down, isn’t it? A lot of it is on how you view the importance of positions and some of it is just how attached we are to these players. This is the kind of team, and these are the kind of players, that stick with you - if you were just discovering hockey during the late 90s, these are your memories.

This isn’t a perfect poll, but I’m curious - who would you consider to be the best player on that 1999-2000 team?