A Retrospective and Outlook for the St. Louis Blues
The Blues (35-35-7) have mathematically been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff Contention. This was a year that was supposed to contend for them, give them at best another cup and at worst, a first round exit to a tough Minnesota or Colorado team, and then they could move forward. Here we will take a look at what happened, why it happened, and what the Blues need to do going forward to contend again.
Expectations
After the Blues lost in 6 to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Avalanche in the 2022 playoffs, expectations were high. Though they lost a few key players, namely David Perron, in the offseason, the Blues rode into the season as a consensus playoff team. They were widely predicted to be the 2nd or 3rd best team in the Central, and those who disagreed and put the Predators, Jets, or Stars, before the Blues were few and far between. The expectation for the Blues was to make the playoffs, have a long, hard fought series with the Wild, and if they did, attempt revenge on the Avs. Some thought they could even beat the Avs and challenge for their 2nd Cup in 4 years, while the vast majority had them as 1st or 2nd round exits. Not many analysts predicted the collapse that was to occur. It was unrealistic and unpredictable...
Or was it?
Cracks in the Foundation
The 2021-22 Blues were not a perfect team. Their main issue was with their defense, which was in no way elite and not the cup contending defense they were expected to be against Colorado in Round 2. Of the 7 defenders that ran the ice for a large portion of 2021-22, only one had a positive Expected Goal Differential, and that was Torey Krug. Another stat that attempts to estimate a player's effect on the ice is Corsi For%, which estimates how much a team has the puck when the player is on the ice. Above 50 means that the team controls the puck when this player is on ice, usually. Only 3 Blues defensemen have a Corsi For% above 50: Jake Walman, who left for the Detroit Red Wings, Calle Rosen, who only played 18 games, and Scott Perunovich, who only played 19. The worst performers on the Blues were Marco Scandella, Niko Mikkola, and Nick Leddy, who all returned to the Blues for the 22-23 season. A good defense will usually have 1 or 2 standout defenders on this stat, which made the Blues lack of starting defense having good numbers here extremely concerning. Even more concerning was the Blues resigning Nick Leddy, a proven below average defender, to a 4x4 contract in the summer. The cracks in the defense were starting to show. But this can be fixed, right? All the Blues needed was Scott Perunovich to step up, and Krug to step up like he was paid to, and Parayko to regress to the 2019 mean. None of those things happened. Scott Perunovich unfortunately suffered a shoulder injury that has put him out of the lineup since October. Other minor injuries have popped up as well, but for the most part, the Blues defense minus Perunovich was still there. They could still play at a playoff caliber, right?
Moving from the defense, the forward group in 2021-22 was also showing cracks. A very basic look can show that the Blues offense last season was extremely lucky, with 54.5 goals above expected, which is the highest number of GFAx of any team in 21-22. The closest team to them, with 51 GFAx, was the team they beat in Round 1 of the Playoffs, the Wild. This naturally put their Goal Differential at a far higher total than what was expected, making their offense look better than it actually was. The Blues ranked dead average, 16th in the NHL, with a 50.3 xG%, which is a good estimate to show that the Blues typically played evenly to their opponents. On the individual level, there were promising outlooks on players such as Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, and Pavel Buchnevich. Their offense suffered a key loss going into the 22-23 season though as they lost David Perron to free agency, a big blow to their offense as Perron was a major contributer to their Corsi as well as a great two-way forward. And, as we know, the Blues defense didn't get any better in the offseason, so losing a forward that played good defense massively hurt the Blues.
And finally, before we move on to this season, we must talk about 21-22 Blues goaltending. If you're wondering how the Blues managed to be a 2nd round playoff team, you can find your answer in two ways. The first is to credit Craig Berube, a coach who clearly got the most out of his players ever since he first took over in the 18-19 Stanley Cup season. The second is to credit Ville Husso.
Ville Husso only played 40 games in the 21-22 season, but he still left his mark. He finished with a 13.5 GSAx, 15 GSA Average (similar to GSAx), a .919 SV% and a .913 xSV%. All signs pointed to him being an elite goalie. He was the 9th best goalie in the NHL based on statistics and was higher than Jacob Markstrom, Ilya Sorokin, and Tristan Jarry, 3 elite goalies that year. Ville Husso was making the below average Blues defense look good by making incredible save after incredible save. If Ville Husso was the starting goalie, the Blues might be in a better spot, because clearly he vibed well in St. Louis. But, in 22-23, Ville Husso took a massive step back as he had to deal with the horrific defense the Red Wings have put in front of him. Who's to say what would've happened if the Blues kept him. But, they couldn't keep him. Because they have pay Jordan Binnington 6 million until 2027...
The Overpay of Binnington
Jordan Binnington has only had one good season. His rookie season. 2019. And he won the Blues a cup. They paid him 6 mil a year for it. Ever since then, Jordan Binnington has either been an average-mediocre goalie, or downright terrible. Ville Husso took the starting spot from Binnington in late 21-22 because of two reasons. The first was how well Husso was playing. The second was because of how terrible Jordan Binnington was. Jordan Binnington in 2021-22 saved 8.2 goals less than he was expected to. His GSAA was -6.4 and his SV% and xSV% were both at a .901. While Ville Husso was the 9th best goalie statistically in 2021-22, Jordan Binnington was the 9th worst, with only 8 goalies behind them. A fun fact, one of those goalies behind Binnington: Blues round one opposing goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
Jordan Binnington is the 6th highest paid goaltender in the NHL. And yet, Jordan Binnington is not playing like a top 6 goalie in the NHL. In fact, in terms of GSAx, Jordan Binnington is the worst goalie in the NHL over 40 GP this season, with a GSAx of -12.7. With Binnington seemingly at the helm for goalies in St. Louis again next season, concern must be rising for the Blues. Unless Binnington can magically turn his form around to his rookie season, this team is going to suffer. With not much brightness on the surface of the defensive side of Blues hockey, they need a good goalie. And Binnington has proved in the last two seasons that he is not only not worth 6 million dollars, but is a bad goalie that is straining the Blues with little cap space and no hope in net.
Or was it?
Cracks in the Foundation
The 2021-22 Blues were not a perfect team. Their main issue was with their defense, which was in no way elite and not the cup contending defense they were expected to be against Colorado in Round 2. Of the 7 defenders that ran the ice for a large portion of 2021-22, only one had a positive Expected Goal Differential, and that was Torey Krug. Another stat that attempts to estimate a player's effect on the ice is Corsi For%, which estimates how much a team has the puck when the player is on the ice. Above 50 means that the team controls the puck when this player is on ice, usually. Only 3 Blues defensemen have a Corsi For% above 50: Jake Walman, who left for the Detroit Red Wings, Calle Rosen, who only played 18 games, and Scott Perunovich, who only played 19. The worst performers on the Blues were Marco Scandella, Niko Mikkola, and Nick Leddy, who all returned to the Blues for the 22-23 season. A good defense will usually have 1 or 2 standout defenders on this stat, which made the Blues lack of starting defense having good numbers here extremely concerning. Even more concerning was the Blues resigning Nick Leddy, a proven below average defender, to a 4x4 contract in the summer. The cracks in the defense were starting to show. But this can be fixed, right? All the Blues needed was Scott Perunovich to step up, and Krug to step up like he was paid to, and Parayko to regress to the 2019 mean. None of those things happened. Scott Perunovich unfortunately suffered a shoulder injury that has put him out of the lineup since October. Other minor injuries have popped up as well, but for the most part, the Blues defense minus Perunovich was still there. They could still play at a playoff caliber, right?
Moving from the defense, the forward group in 2021-22 was also showing cracks. A very basic look can show that the Blues offense last season was extremely lucky, with 54.5 goals above expected, which is the highest number of GFAx of any team in 21-22. The closest team to them, with 51 GFAx, was the team they beat in Round 1 of the Playoffs, the Wild. This naturally put their Goal Differential at a far higher total than what was expected, making their offense look better than it actually was. The Blues ranked dead average, 16th in the NHL, with a 50.3 xG%, which is a good estimate to show that the Blues typically played evenly to their opponents. On the individual level, there were promising outlooks on players such as Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, and Pavel Buchnevich. Their offense suffered a key loss going into the 22-23 season though as they lost David Perron to free agency, a big blow to their offense as Perron was a major contributer to their Corsi as well as a great two-way forward. And, as we know, the Blues defense didn't get any better in the offseason, so losing a forward that played good defense massively hurt the Blues.
And finally, before we move on to this season, we must talk about 21-22 Blues goaltending. If you're wondering how the Blues managed to be a 2nd round playoff team, you can find your answer in two ways. The first is to credit Craig Berube, a coach who clearly got the most out of his players ever since he first took over in the 18-19 Stanley Cup season. The second is to credit Ville Husso.
Ville Husso only played 40 games in the 21-22 season, but he still left his mark. He finished with a 13.5 GSAx, 15 GSA Average (similar to GSAx), a .919 SV% and a .913 xSV%. All signs pointed to him being an elite goalie. He was the 9th best goalie in the NHL based on statistics and was higher than Jacob Markstrom, Ilya Sorokin, and Tristan Jarry, 3 elite goalies that year. Ville Husso was making the below average Blues defense look good by making incredible save after incredible save. If Ville Husso was the starting goalie, the Blues might be in a better spot, because clearly he vibed well in St. Louis. But, in 22-23, Ville Husso took a massive step back as he had to deal with the horrific defense the Red Wings have put in front of him. Who's to say what would've happened if the Blues kept him. But, they couldn't keep him. Because they have pay Jordan Binnington 6 million until 2027...
The Overpay of Binnington
Jordan Binnington has only had one good season. His rookie season. 2019. And he won the Blues a cup. They paid him 6 mil a year for it. Ever since then, Jordan Binnington has either been an average-mediocre goalie, or downright terrible. Ville Husso took the starting spot from Binnington in late 21-22 because of two reasons. The first was how well Husso was playing. The second was because of how terrible Jordan Binnington was. Jordan Binnington in 2021-22 saved 8.2 goals less than he was expected to. His GSAA was -6.4 and his SV% and xSV% were both at a .901. While Ville Husso was the 9th best goalie statistically in 2021-22, Jordan Binnington was the 9th worst, with only 8 goalies behind them. A fun fact, one of those goalies behind Binnington: Blues round one opposing goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
Jordan Binnington is the 6th highest paid goaltender in the NHL. And yet, Jordan Binnington is not playing like a top 6 goalie in the NHL. In fact, in terms of GSAx, Jordan Binnington is the worst goalie in the NHL over 40 GP this season, with a GSAx of -12.7. With Binnington seemingly at the helm for goalies in St. Louis again next season, concern must be rising for the Blues. Unless Binnington can magically turn his form around to his rookie season, this team is going to suffer. With not much brightness on the surface of the defensive side of Blues hockey, they need a good goalie. And Binnington has proved in the last two seasons that he is not only not worth 6 million dollars, but is a bad goalie that is straining the Blues with little cap space and no hope in net.
2022-23 Blues
Once again, the Blues came into this season with high expectations. They were supposed to make the playoffs and go decently far in them. However, nothing of the sort is coming to St. Louis. As I've already touched on, there has been a massive hole in net as Binnington cannot hold down the fort for them. How has the rest of the team performed?
The Defense has not gotten any better since last season. Of course, with Scott Perunovich's injury, the depth got extremely shallow and they had to rely on their players from last season, who had rough years, to step up. Unfortunately for the Blues, this did not happen. The defense as a whole has allowed a lot of scoring chances through, which is certainly not a recipe to win games. It's also worth noting that the Blues blue line has suffered a lot from injuries, and only 6 defensemen hit the 400 minute mark so far this season. Of those 6, zero of them have an expected goal differential that is positive, with the closest being Calle Rosen at -2.6. Once again, not a recipe for success, especially for a team that has had below average goaltending. When a team has a below average goaltender, they need the defense to pick up the slack and not leave the goalie out to dry. The Blues have not done that with Binnington.
The Blues offense has also not stepped up this season. They have a below average 46% Corsi, which is concerning because it just shows how little their offense performs compared to how much their defense gives up. Their xGF% is an abysmal 44%. When you plot these two stats on a graph together, the Blues offense comes up in the bottom left corner. Obviously this is bad. There are only 5 teams that are further down-left on this graph than the Blues: the Habs, the Yotes, the Blue Jackets, the Ducks, and the Blackhawks. This puts the Blues as a bottom 7 offense in the NHL. The Blues also have the lowest number of High Danger Shots/60 minutes in the entire NHL, with just 1.83. Looking at the Jets, a team performing like the usual expectation of the Blues, they have 2.7 HD Shots For/60. Nearly a whole high danger shot more. This shows that the Blues offense is just not testing opposing goalies as much as they should be.
Once again, the Blues also have a lucky offense, with the 2nd highest Goals For above Expected in the NHL. The only team they are behind in this aspect is the Seattle Kraken. Looking more individually at the numbers shows that the Blues have suffered from anemic offense from nearly everyone on the team except their top line. Kyrou, Thomas, and Buchnevich have performed at their levels this season, and since the deadline, acquisitions of Jakub Vrana and Sammy Blais have also lit up the scoresheet recently. Their offense overall though has been wildly inconsistent and below average, and with the exception of a few players, they haven't been able to get real threats on opposing defenses.
A question for this Blues team is just how they are winning enough games to not be in the Bedard sweepstakes. This team looks bottom 5 on Defense and Goaltending, and bottom 7 on Offense, and yet they are only the 10th worst team in the league. Once again, the credit needs to go to Craig Berube. Good coaching goes a long way and he has proven that he can get the best out of his players, especially his forwards, to produce even when the underlying stats say they shouldn't. That's why the Blues always look so lucky on offense, because Berube is an amazing coach.
But now the question has to be answered, where do the Blues go from here? They traded Ryan O'Reilly and Vladdy Tarasenko at the deadline, have several question marks to fill and 3 draft picks.
What Now?
The St. Louis Blues future is very muddy. This season really opened the eyes as to how bad the defensive core is when they don't have an elite goalie saving absurd shots. One way or another, if the Blues are to compete as early as next year, they need to do several things in this offseason.
First, the forward group can be expanded on, but not overhauled. In the darkness that has been this year, there have been some bright spots. Jakub Vrana has 9 goals in his 15 games since being picked up, with a really impressive S% of 18%. Vrana also has positive Corsi and Fenwick For Relative stats, which means he has played above the average of Blues forwards. Sammy Blais has really brought the two-way aspect of forwards back to STL since he's returned, as he has 222 hits this season, far more than any other forward in far less games, and blocks 2.22 shots per game, which helps ease the load on the defense. They seemingly can rely on Kyrou, Thomas, and Buchnevich to continue producing as they have the last two years, as they are the only forwards other than small sample size who have solid under the hood numbers. All 5 of the players I mentioned are signed through the end of the next season, which is good for the Blues.
For this forward core to continue, they will need better performances out of Jake Neighbors, a prospect who is supposed to make his NHL impact any day now. Brandon Saad also can play more like his pre-Blues days, which would really bolster the Blues top 6/top 9 while not having to add on. While the Blues probably should add on to this forward core in free agency, this is the least of their concerns so if they do not, they can still compete. However, if they are looking to add on now with that O'Reilly and Tarasenko money off the books, someone such as Tomas Tatar or Tyler Bertuzzi signing could help them out on both sides of the ice and really make this forward core as elite as it was during the Blues cup run.
Before we go in to the horrific defensive core, let's touch on the goaltending first. Jordan Binnington is simply not the answer for the St. Louis Blues. As we've said, he's been a horrible goalie the last two years and hasn't produced on his paygrade since before he got it, in 2019. It would be a tough pill to swallow for Blues fans, but the option may be to buy Binnington out. It would free up some more cap and the increase in the salary cap should make the blow of having to pay out after the contract would have ended ease. Then, the Blues have 1 of 2 options in net. They could sign someone like Alex Nedelkjovic to hope he returns to form, or maybe someone like Freddie Andersen, or they could sign another Greiss-like player and move forward with Joel Hofer. Joel Hofer hasn't played very many games this season, only 5 this year and 7 in his young NHL career, but he shows promise. He was the only Blues goalie to appear and land a positive GSAx, with .7, and if he didn't have that 5 goal showing against LA, that number would probably be closer to 2.0. In AHL Springfield, he's been fantastic, with a .920 SV%, which is good enough for 3rd in the AHL. While Joel Hofer is only 22 years old, when you have a goalie that is seemingly ready to take on the NHL, you do not wait on him, especially on the Blues, a team who would like the make the playoffs, but could live with Hofer not being ready, sending him back down and having another rough season. This Blues team is not really able to do a six month retool like other teams are. Unless Joel Hofer becomes a good starting goalie. But, if the Blues keep Binnington, unless he returns to 2019 form, expect another rough season in net for St. Louis.
Once again, the Blues came into this season with high expectations. They were supposed to make the playoffs and go decently far in them. However, nothing of the sort is coming to St. Louis. As I've already touched on, there has been a massive hole in net as Binnington cannot hold down the fort for them. How has the rest of the team performed?
The Defense has not gotten any better since last season. Of course, with Scott Perunovich's injury, the depth got extremely shallow and they had to rely on their players from last season, who had rough years, to step up. Unfortunately for the Blues, this did not happen. The defense as a whole has allowed a lot of scoring chances through, which is certainly not a recipe to win games. It's also worth noting that the Blues blue line has suffered a lot from injuries, and only 6 defensemen hit the 400 minute mark so far this season. Of those 6, zero of them have an expected goal differential that is positive, with the closest being Calle Rosen at -2.6. Once again, not a recipe for success, especially for a team that has had below average goaltending. When a team has a below average goaltender, they need the defense to pick up the slack and not leave the goalie out to dry. The Blues have not done that with Binnington.
The Blues offense has also not stepped up this season. They have a below average 46% Corsi, which is concerning because it just shows how little their offense performs compared to how much their defense gives up. Their xGF% is an abysmal 44%. When you plot these two stats on a graph together, the Blues offense comes up in the bottom left corner. Obviously this is bad. There are only 5 teams that are further down-left on this graph than the Blues: the Habs, the Yotes, the Blue Jackets, the Ducks, and the Blackhawks. This puts the Blues as a bottom 7 offense in the NHL. The Blues also have the lowest number of High Danger Shots/60 minutes in the entire NHL, with just 1.83. Looking at the Jets, a team performing like the usual expectation of the Blues, they have 2.7 HD Shots For/60. Nearly a whole high danger shot more. This shows that the Blues offense is just not testing opposing goalies as much as they should be.
Once again, the Blues also have a lucky offense, with the 2nd highest Goals For above Expected in the NHL. The only team they are behind in this aspect is the Seattle Kraken. Looking more individually at the numbers shows that the Blues have suffered from anemic offense from nearly everyone on the team except their top line. Kyrou, Thomas, and Buchnevich have performed at their levels this season, and since the deadline, acquisitions of Jakub Vrana and Sammy Blais have also lit up the scoresheet recently. Their offense overall though has been wildly inconsistent and below average, and with the exception of a few players, they haven't been able to get real threats on opposing defenses.
A question for this Blues team is just how they are winning enough games to not be in the Bedard sweepstakes. This team looks bottom 5 on Defense and Goaltending, and bottom 7 on Offense, and yet they are only the 10th worst team in the league. Once again, the credit needs to go to Craig Berube. Good coaching goes a long way and he has proven that he can get the best out of his players, especially his forwards, to produce even when the underlying stats say they shouldn't. That's why the Blues always look so lucky on offense, because Berube is an amazing coach.
But now the question has to be answered, where do the Blues go from here? They traded Ryan O'Reilly and Vladdy Tarasenko at the deadline, have several question marks to fill and 3 draft picks.
What Now?
The St. Louis Blues future is very muddy. This season really opened the eyes as to how bad the defensive core is when they don't have an elite goalie saving absurd shots. One way or another, if the Blues are to compete as early as next year, they need to do several things in this offseason.
First, the forward group can be expanded on, but not overhauled. In the darkness that has been this year, there have been some bright spots. Jakub Vrana has 9 goals in his 15 games since being picked up, with a really impressive S% of 18%. Vrana also has positive Corsi and Fenwick For Relative stats, which means he has played above the average of Blues forwards. Sammy Blais has really brought the two-way aspect of forwards back to STL since he's returned, as he has 222 hits this season, far more than any other forward in far less games, and blocks 2.22 shots per game, which helps ease the load on the defense. They seemingly can rely on Kyrou, Thomas, and Buchnevich to continue producing as they have the last two years, as they are the only forwards other than small sample size who have solid under the hood numbers. All 5 of the players I mentioned are signed through the end of the next season, which is good for the Blues.
For this forward core to continue, they will need better performances out of Jake Neighbors, a prospect who is supposed to make his NHL impact any day now. Brandon Saad also can play more like his pre-Blues days, which would really bolster the Blues top 6/top 9 while not having to add on. While the Blues probably should add on to this forward core in free agency, this is the least of their concerns so if they do not, they can still compete. However, if they are looking to add on now with that O'Reilly and Tarasenko money off the books, someone such as Tomas Tatar or Tyler Bertuzzi signing could help them out on both sides of the ice and really make this forward core as elite as it was during the Blues cup run.
Before we go in to the horrific defensive core, let's touch on the goaltending first. Jordan Binnington is simply not the answer for the St. Louis Blues. As we've said, he's been a horrible goalie the last two years and hasn't produced on his paygrade since before he got it, in 2019. It would be a tough pill to swallow for Blues fans, but the option may be to buy Binnington out. It would free up some more cap and the increase in the salary cap should make the blow of having to pay out after the contract would have ended ease. Then, the Blues have 1 of 2 options in net. They could sign someone like Alex Nedelkjovic to hope he returns to form, or maybe someone like Freddie Andersen, or they could sign another Greiss-like player and move forward with Joel Hofer. Joel Hofer hasn't played very many games this season, only 5 this year and 7 in his young NHL career, but he shows promise. He was the only Blues goalie to appear and land a positive GSAx, with .7, and if he didn't have that 5 goal showing against LA, that number would probably be closer to 2.0. In AHL Springfield, he's been fantastic, with a .920 SV%, which is good enough for 3rd in the AHL. While Joel Hofer is only 22 years old, when you have a goalie that is seemingly ready to take on the NHL, you do not wait on him, especially on the Blues, a team who would like the make the playoffs, but could live with Hofer not being ready, sending him back down and having another rough season. This Blues team is not really able to do a six month retool like other teams are. Unless Joel Hofer becomes a good starting goalie. But, if the Blues keep Binnington, unless he returns to 2019 form, expect another rough season in net for St. Louis.
Finally, what to do about this defense. With absolutely no + sign on any of these players, it is certainly rough to decide what to do. If the Blues spend ~6 million on combined forwards and goaltending, assuming 4 million comes off the books from a Binnington buyout, that leaves the Blues with around 7 million to spend on the defense. Even worse for the Blues is that 5 of their defensemen have no trades, meaning it is pretty much impossible to move any of them. Buying out Colton Parayko is certainly an option, but I don't think they would do it this offseason if they buyout Binnington too. Which means they need to bolster with the 7 million they have. Signing a free agent is necessary. They need to spend 5-6 million on one of Dmitry Orlov, Matt Dumba, Damon Severson, or Vladislav Gavrikov. If they can manage to land one top four and one top six defenseman while staying in the cap, that would be fantastic. Realistically though they get one, and then that leaves what to do again. Marco Scandella simply has to be benched this season. He has not had a good defensive season since before he came to STL and there are other prospects the Blues need to play. They want Scott Perunovich to finally make his mark, and if all goes right he can slide right into their top six. They also have freshly signed Matt Kessel and Tyler Tucker, who both could realistically make a shot for a top six spot. In an ideal world, they find a team that Colton Parayko wants to go to and they get that team to take him, but to do that, they would likely have to drop a first rounder to make up for the Parayko contract, and I just don't think the Blues are willing to do that. This means that they'll still have holes on defense, but those can be shored up if Hofer plays well and if Justin Faulk can return to solid defensive play, alongside a new addition. They will also like to stop Colton Parayko and Nick Leddy from being negative defenders, and if they can get to average, this defense will look a lot better.
The Blues also have 3 first round picks this season, which they should take the top men available and try to develop. If they can manage to get high level NHL talent for them, trading would be fine. But, I think it is in the Blues best interest to replenish their prospect pool and get ready to contend again in 2 or 3 seasons. Who the Blues should take I do not know because the placement of picks is far from being decided.
Realism for Next Season
Even with all the changes I have proposed, the Blues likely are not a playoff team next season. They need to let their young prospects, namely their forwards and Hofer, progress until they can push. In an ideal world, it all comes together next season, but the truth is that it is highly unlikely that it will. I estimate the Blues finishing right around where they're going to finish this year, 6th in the Central and out of the playoffs by around 8-10 points. If all goes right, they jump into a wild card spot, and if Joel Hofer plays out of his mind, they could potentially do things in the playoffs. It all comes down to that. If the Blues keep Binnington, another year of no playoffs is probably on lock unless Binnington improves. I understand keeping Binnington to have Hofer back him up, but I just don't think it will be the right call.
The Blues are a directionless team right now, after this disappointing year. But, there's still hope for the future, and this team can return to cup contention soon if Doug Armstrong makes good moves and players step it up.
The Blues also have 3 first round picks this season, which they should take the top men available and try to develop. If they can manage to get high level NHL talent for them, trading would be fine. But, I think it is in the Blues best interest to replenish their prospect pool and get ready to contend again in 2 or 3 seasons. Who the Blues should take I do not know because the placement of picks is far from being decided.
Realism for Next Season
Even with all the changes I have proposed, the Blues likely are not a playoff team next season. They need to let their young prospects, namely their forwards and Hofer, progress until they can push. In an ideal world, it all comes together next season, but the truth is that it is highly unlikely that it will. I estimate the Blues finishing right around where they're going to finish this year, 6th in the Central and out of the playoffs by around 8-10 points. If all goes right, they jump into a wild card spot, and if Joel Hofer plays out of his mind, they could potentially do things in the playoffs. It all comes down to that. If the Blues keep Binnington, another year of no playoffs is probably on lock unless Binnington improves. I understand keeping Binnington to have Hofer back him up, but I just don't think it will be the right call.
The Blues are a directionless team right now, after this disappointing year. But, there's still hope for the future, and this team can return to cup contention soon if Doug Armstrong makes good moves and players step it up.
See you next time on Beyond Center Ice!
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