Brodeur maintains faith in Blues' Allen

The fact that Jake Allen has the St. Louis Blues' assistant general manager in his corner is not insignificant, because when you're struggling in net, it helps to know one of the game's greatest goalies believes in you.

Martin Brodeur has been keeping a close eye on Allen over the past few years, and was part of the braintrust that handed him the starting job and a four-year, $17.4-million contract extension last summer. Pulled from four of his past six starts, Allen's save percentage recently dipped to .897, raising questions about his ability to backstop the team moving forward.

Brodeur, who holds the NHL record with 691 career wins, has no doubt Allen - who was given the weekend off to clear his head - can rebound from a tough start to the season.

"He’s good enough, he’s talented enough, he’s got a great technique to fall back on, it’s just a matter of repetition and getting it done," Brodeur told Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We’ve talked to him and we do have a lot of faith him, so I don’t think that should be a concern for him going forward. If that was a doubt that he had in his mind, well, that’s disappeared now because I think we were pretty clear about that."

Having said that, Brodeur isn't taking an active role in helping Allen figure things out.

"I just kind of told him to keep his head up, that’s it," Brodeur said. "I didn’t really sit down or have a conversation with him about what’s going on. The more people that talk to him, the tougher it gets, so I didn’t want to be too much involved. I’m in the back here watching everything going on, but you care because it’s what I used to do."

Allen is expected to practice with the Blues on Monday, and could be back in net Tuesday against Pittsburgh, the hottest team in the NHL at the moment.

Brodeur, for one, expects Allen to return refreshed and ready for the challenge.

"I believe he will be successful and this will just bring greater things in the future - I really believe that," he said. "Everybody goes through it, sometimes guys have to go through it harder than others. The move that we made with him, I think it’s really to help him get out of this. It’s difficult now, but looking back two or three months from now, this is just going to be a little blip on the radar."