The trade deadline has come and gone and Ryan Johnson is still in a Blues’ uniform. That’s because the Blues weren’t worried about losing an asset for nothing this summer. They want to keep Johnson, and though a contract extension is still being negotiated, John Davidson believes the two sides can get a new deal done.

Johnson showed his value again Tuesday, scoring the game-winner in a 3-2 victory over Los Angeles. Yeah the goal wasn’t a thing of beauty, but it was something to see, and as Johnson said after the game, “We’ll take it.”

Johnson is finishing the final year of a two-year deal that paid him $800,000 annually. So what is he worth now?

A lot of people see Johnson differently. Some think he’s a dime-a-dozen grinder who can be found anywhere in the league for peanuts. Others believe the Blues can’t afford to lose him because of his speed, ability on the penalty kill and occasional offensive contributions.

The team feels the latter about Johnson, who has 19 goals in five seasons with the Blues.

“He’s got a defensive focus and his speed is the best part of his game, and his courage is just as valuable to us,” Blues coach Andy Murray said. ”He doesn’t score a lot, but when he does, it’s quite significant.”

My guess is that Johnson will sign a two-year extension, probably near $1 million per season. That would put him in the neighborhood of Jamal Mayers ($1.4 million per) and Dan Hinote ($1 million per), which is about right.

The Blues shouldn’t have needed Johnson’s heroics. After taking a 1-0 lead on Andy McDonald’s goal in the first period Tuesday, the Blues could have gone up 2-0. But they failed on a 5-on-3 power play that lasted 1:35. The club is now 1-14 with a 2-man advantage this season.

“We had three or four great looks on the 5-on-3 and it just won’t go in for us,” Murray said. “ We just need to take more shots . . . don’t hang on to it at all. We practice it a lot, but we haven’t had one for so long. We felt that we hung on to the puck way to long, instead of moving it quicker.

“Paul (Kariya) had a couple of chances to pound the puck and he didn’t,” Murray added. “It’s got to be quicker. Brad (Boyes) gets the one and he’s got Keith (Tkachuk) wide open in the middle. He just hangs onto it too long and a guy gets his stick in the lane. I just thought we were too slow with it, that’s what we went over this morning.”

Murray liked his team’s five-on-five offense (the Blues had 31 shots), and he liked the line combinations that he had Tuesday.

Tuesday’s lines looked like this . . .

Kariya-McDonald-Backes

Rucinsky-Tkachuk-Boyes

Perron-Johnson-Mayers

King-Stastny-Stempniak

“I thought we had pretty good balance, pretty good speed on the lines,” Murray said. “When Keith plays like that, we’re a much better team. Keith had his legs moving last night and he was driving.”

Murray shared the following story about Tkachuk’s son at the morning skate Tuesday, getting in a few laps before the team took the ice . . .

“Keith said, ‘You’ve got one more lap and then you’ve got to get off,’” Murray said. ”The kid is skating around and he’s not going hard. Keith is yelling at him, ‘Harder, harder.’ So all practice yesterday, I was yelling (at Tkachuk), ‘Harder, harder.’”

Kariya had one assist and five shots on goal Tuesday against LA. I am working on a story about Kariya, who says that he’s been missing the net a lot lately.

“At times I’ve been too fine with my shooting . . . not just looking five-hole or hitting the net,” Kariya said. “It’s something that when I look at the last few games, it’s crept up into my game. When you miss the net, that’s an opportunity that you missed to score and it’s an opportunity you missed to produce an assist or rebound. I think that’s an easy fix.”

Here’s how missing the net translates:

In the first 48 games, Kariya had just 31 missed shots and meanwhile posted 12 goals and 32 assists. So that’s 44 points in 48 games - not too shabby.

In the last 18 games, Kariya has 18 missed shots. Meanwhile, he has just three goals and five assists in that stretch. So that’s eight points in 18 games; if you extrapolate that to 48 games, that’s roughly 21 points.

Jay McClement was a healthy scratch for the first time this season on Tuesday. Murray said Wednesday he wanted to see what Yan Stastny “could bring.”

“Jay put himself into that gray area where his name was a topic of discussion, as to whether he would play or not,” Murray said. “The key thing is you don’t put yourself into that discussion group. If you’re in that group, there’s a chance that you might not play, and that’s what happened.”

McClement is expected to be back in the lineup tonight. It appears that D.J. King will sit, so Stastny will likely move to right wing.

Despite back-to-back games, Manny Legace will be in net tonight. “He says he can rest tomorrow,” Murray said.

Including Tuesday’s win, the Blues have held opponents to two goals or less in 11 of their last 13 games. ”It’s amazing that our win totals haven’t been better than that,” Murray said.

You know what’s more amazing? Manny Legace is the MVP of this team and he’s the main reason the Blues have as many wins as they do . . . yet in the wake of the last few contracts given by the team, Legace is becoming one of the lowest-paid players on the roster. (Legace signed a two-year deal for $4.2 million).

Yeah Legace was let go by Detroit, but he probably deserved a bigger payday.

Another amazing development: After trading Bryce Salvador to get Cam Janssen, who said he had an element the team needed, Janssen will be a healthy scratch tonight for the second time in three games since his arrival.

I leave you with this comment from Andy Murray on defenseman Erik Johnson. Bill Clement and Sam Rosen are in town to do the game tonight for NHL Radio, and Clement asked Murray how EJ is looking lately.

“He’s come quite a ways,” Murray said. “He was disadvantaged in my opinion by not coming in at the end of last year and playing . . . to know what the league was all about and how strong the guys are. So I think it took him a while to adjust. Some of the guys that came in . . . Jack Johnson . . . the guys that played at the end of last year had a bit of a jump on him. But he’s playing lots of minutes now.”

JR