Newly minted center Tkachuk (7) and wingers Kariya (center) and Boyes had 17 of St. Louis's first 33 goals. David E. Klutho/SI

When Murray succeeded Mike Kitchen last Dec. 11, the Blues were 7-17-4 and 30th in the NHL overall standings. "Because you can't actually go to 31st," Murray says, "I think people were willing to listen." Under Murray, who led St. Louis to a 27-18-9 record to wind up 10th in the Western Conference, quickly made an imprint by shifting Keith Tkachuk, among the NHL's most prominent left wings for more than a decade, to center. Even though the 6' 2", 232-pound Tkachuk gave the Blues the requisite size to compete against the big centers in the West, the move seemed counterintuitive. Tkachuk always had been a finisher, a crease banger who lacked a playmaker's pedigree. Yet his unconventional job skills have not prevented Tkachuk, shipped to Atlanta at the trade deadline last February and traded back to the Blues in June, from centering one of the NHL's most productive lines. Tkachuk, newcomer Paul Kariya and Brad Boyes (acquired from the Bruins last February) had combined for 41 points.

"I thought at first I'd do it to kind of take one for the team," says Tkachuk. "Now I actually like it. It has helped my game, gotten me skating more, made me more physically involved. But if I'm the one handling the puck through the neutral zone, we're in a little trouble."

Tkachuk works diligently to improve his stickhandling. Every day he and rookie winger David Perron practice slaloming a puck in close quarters. Perron is magic. Tkachuk is a veg-o-matic. On a team with a breezy camaraderie, the players rib Tkachuk so unmercifully that assistant coach Ray Bennett has asked them to back off before one of their stars gets discouraged.

The Tkachuk tutorials come at the end of practice -- perhaps one that Murray has designed to last precisely 39 minutes. If wins don't always come like clockwork, it is not because of a lack of structure. Murray is in his office by an NFL-like 6 a.m. His assistants are usually there for meetings before seven, which has prompted goalie coach Rick Wamsley to threaten to arrive in his pajamas. Even on the road, Blues days start early, and sometime during the night Murray will have personally slipped one of his Andygrams under the hotel room doors. The single-sheet Andygram, chocked with information pertinent to the upcoming game, might not be required reading -- there are no written quizzes -- but a player who merely skims one does so at his peril.

"At [a morning meeting] on the first road trip this season Andy asks [center] Jay McClement the difference between the Kings' neutral-zone forecheck and ours," Kariya says. "McClement answers that the Kings move up their right [defenseman] to lock up the middle. I'm sitting there thinking, I have no idea and it's lucky Andy didn't call on me. He usually asks the younger guys."

2 of 3