The 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs are about a month away. Every contending team that bought big at the trade deadline will play at their fullest potential to clinch a spot in the playoffs—the St. Louis Blues are not among those contending teams that brought in a lot of assets. Yet, they are still on the verge of making the playoffs in March. Here are three things the Blues need to improve on ahead of the playoffs if they want to compete.
Power Play Needs to Improve if They Want to Compete
Something that needs to change on the Blues’s end is their power play performance, and they need to start now if they want to get into a good routine of scoring on the power play by the time the playoffs begin. The power play is an essential aspect of the game, especially when teams need to tie games or keep up with high-scoring teams. The Blues can be that team, but their problem is that they have very few goal-scoring options for the power play.
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The Blues’ power-play percentage (21.4) is just inside the top 20 in the league, which is mediocre. They only have Jordan Kyrou (6), Jake Neighbours (6), Dylan Holloway (6), and Oskar Sundqvist (4) to lean on for power-play goal production, but among the league, they all rank out the top 50 power-play goalscorers. The Blues’ previous power-play goal leaders, Pavel Buchnevich and Robert Thomas, have recently seen a minor regression in their performance.
They are not putting up what they usually do when scoring on the power play. While Thomas has been a great playmaker on the power play with 10 assists this season, he and Buchnevich could help this power play be a lot more effective if they score some goals. That said, they could also continue with just one more goalscorer making an effort on the power play, as Thomas is more of a playmaker and would still benefit from his playmaking ability. Buchnevich can thrive off that as the extra piece they need.
Have to Stop Allowing Too Many Shots
The Blues have allowed 1,886 shots so far this season and rank just below the top 15 in shots against, which is not a good place to be. More shots against mean a higher probability for teams to score on them, which is the case as they rank 17th in goals against (2.96) and are on the brink of the three goals against the per-game mark. If they hit that mark, it will start to be concerning, and they will struggle a lot in the playoffs if they make it to keep up with better teams.
More shots against will do more work for their goaltending and make them exhausted by the time the playoffs arrive. Starter Jordan Binnington has already played through a rough and intense 4 Nations Face-Off a month ago and will be under a lot of pressure if he has to go into a playoff series facing a lot of shots. The same goes for Joel Hofer, who has yet to play in a playoff game and is working to be the Blues’ future starter.
The Blues have Colton Parayko, last season’s top shot blocker in the league, but that will not be enough in the playoffs. They need more than that, and to fix that problem, players must step up and help. For example, a team like the Washington Capitals, who currently lead the Eastern Conference and are Stanley Cup contenders, rank in the top 10 in the league in blocked shots (1,105) and shots against per game (27.1). They have three players who rank in the top 50 in blocked shots this season and have recorded over 100 blocks. The point of the matter is that the Capitals, unlike the Blues, have more than one person to lean on for shutdown defense. In return, it has also benefited their goaltending, as Capitals starter Logan Thompson ranks in the top five in the league.
Need to Give Young Stars a Chance
It may be a risk to call prospects up now, but it doesn’t mean the Blues shouldn’t attempt to do so at this point of the season. They need more youth on the team and should try them out now. One great example of a team in contention using their rookies in the postseason is the Toronto Maple Leafs when they added Matthew Knies to the lineup during the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Maple Leafs had to do it since he signed an entry-level deal with them, meaning he could not play in the NCAA with the University of Minnesota due to their policies on getting paid as an amateur athlete.
The Blues have a similar situation with Jimmy Snuggerud, who plays with the University of Minnesota; however, he is waiting until this NCAA season is over to join the Blues, as general manager Doug Armstrong made clear after last season when Snuggerud was expected to sign his entry-level deal. If that doesn’t happen, Dalibor Dvorsky looks like another top candidate for getting a call-up from American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate Springfield Thunderbirds. This is his first AHL season, and he has recorded 41 points in 55 games, enough to make him an AHL All-Star. Before that, he’d played one season with the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) with the Sudbury Wolves, finishing with 88 points in 52 games. Overall, he is quick at adapting to every level he plays at, and I’m confident he will catch on quickly at the NHL level as a key offensive threat.
Overall, the Blues’ most NHL-ready prospects are looking bright, but they need a small taste of the NHL to develop and improve further over time. It would be even better to try them through the playoffs if they make it, as it will be a big test for them to push through both physically and mentally. The Blues don’t have a team to push through the playoffs, but knowing that their prospects will get to participate and learn from them as Knies did with the Maple Leafs will make them better for the future when they are ready to make a deep playoff push.
Putting Their All Into Making the Playoffs
The Blues have made some tough decisions over the months leading up to the closing of this season, including hiring Jim Montgomery as their head coach, which has kept them afloat and even put them in a winning position that could most likely get them into a position to make the playoffs after going two seasons in a row without doing so. If they want to get the idea that they are a mediocre team out of the minds of the hockey world, they need to fix the things that hold them back from being a contender. Being mediocre is not enough to get through the wild card round, especially when they are competing with a team like the Vancouver Canucks for that spot. Everyone on the Blues needs to have a role and play it well.
