The St. Louis Blues‘ 2023-24 season will be one to pay close attention to. Though many still expect the team to maintain their rebuilding status and miss out on the postseason once more, the club could have a few wild cards in their lineup that can strongly influence the direction of the overall season. Let’s look at three players that will have extra attention on them as the year progresses.
Jordan Binnington
The Blues’ Stanley Cup-winning goaltender has been heavily scrutinized every year since the team’s Cinderella-story championship run. After finishing the 2018-19 season with a 1.89 goals-against average (GAA) and .927 save percentage (SV%), the 29-year-old was a shell of his former self allowing a 3.31 GAA and .894 SV% during the 2022-23 season. While he was not solely to blame for his 27-27-6 record, Jordan Binnington‘s decreasing performance year over year continues to worry fans.
After signing a six-year, $36 million contract with the Blues on March 11, 2021, Binnington is entering the final year of his full no-trade clause. Should his performance and on-ice antics continue to be a cause for concern, the team will have options available to them if they would be interested in fielding trades for the goaltender. After this season, he will be allowed to submit a no-trade list of 18 teams for the 2024-25 season, then 14 and 10 teams, respectively, for the two remaining years of his contract. With Joel Hofer set to take over backup duties for the 2023-24 season, all eyes will be on the veteran to hold his position as the team’s starting goaltender or be forced to lose starts to the youngster.
Sammy Blais
Potentially one of the most underrated storylines heading into 2023-24 will be the performance of Sammy Blais. After being reacquired by the Blues on Feb. 9, 2023, the winger went on to score a career-high nine goals and 20 points in only 31 games upon his return. Should he keep to that scoring pace, he could end this season scoring 23 goals and 53 points in 82 regular season games, along with a sizeable pay raise. He is one of four pending unrestricted free agents after the 2023-24 season, making the Blues a team to watch come the trade deadline once more.
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Blais was drafted and developed by the Blues throughout his entire career before he was packaged in a trade to the New York Rangers in exchange for forward Pavel Buchnevich. Though Blais experienced a season-ending injury only 14 games into his tenure with the Rangers, he never scored a goal for the team while producing nine assists in 54 games.
Blues’ Veteran Defensemen
Lumping together multiple players for this last player under the microscope is bending the spirit of this exercise, but it’s for a good reason. As of this writing, there has not been a single veteran defenseman moved from the Blues roster. The club will need to move out one of these players to not only help with the current logjam at the position but to also create immediate and long-term salary cap flexibility. Should there not be any changes, the 2023-24 season will be another year in which the team will pay three of their blueliners $6.5 million annually, or 23.4 percent of the team’s total salary cap commitment.
Earlier in the offseason, a deal was all but completed to move on from Torey Krug in a trade that would have sent him to the Philadelphia Flyers. However, the 32-year-old exercised his full no-trade clause and declined to be dealt to the rebuilding franchise. Despite any rumored attempts to be flipped by the Flyers as part of a potential three-team trade, the trade never came to fruition. As each day comes to a close, the likelihood that the Blues will trade one of these players is becoming less and less so. The veteran core was largely blamed as one of the reasons for their underperforming 2022-23 season finishing with a record below .500 for the first time since 2007-08. Should there not be a trade before the start of the season, all eyes will be on the defense corps to see who could become the odd man out.
The re-tooling Blues are set to start their season looking to build upon the success found from their trade deadline acquisitions in Jakub Vrana, Kaspari Kapanen, and Blais, and newcomer Kevin Hayes who was acquired this offseason. While the playoffs are still likely out of the picture, they could surprise a few teams and quickly become a dark horse that claws its way to the 2023-24 postseason. These under the microscope players will all need to search for a higher level of play to help elevate the rest of the team around them.
