The St. Louis Blues continue to win the offseason in the summer of 2018. After an initial low grade, they have pushed up into the top ten in the power rankings.
The St. Louis Blues are finally getting a little national recognition. Ok, if we are honest, for a mid-sized market, the Blues actually do get more attention than plenty of non-Canadian teams, but it just never feels that way.
Taking that into account, the Blues continue to pick up pundit accolades for their offseason work in the summer of 2018. They have cracked the Top-10 list in the latest NHL power rankings.
Is this important? Will it lead to any victories come October? Absolutely not. But for fans, it is a nice recognition that your team is highly thought of in some way, shape or fashion.
There was a power ranking released about a week prior that had the Blues at 14. That seems incredibly low, given that the Blues barely missed the playoffs and made some significant improvements to the team. However, to play devil’s advocate, it was hard to really pick any teams the Blues should honestly replace.
The same is true of this top-10 list. Could the Blues be higher based on the depth they have created, top to bottom? Absolutely, they could. Again, who do you take out?
The most likely candidates, from my own perspective, would be Toronto, San Jose or Vegas.
Toronto clearly has better high-end talent than the Blues. However, they let two key pieces walk away in James van Reimsdyk and Tyler Bozak, the latter of which the Blues signed. Those aren’t difference makers in any single game, but they can make a big difference over the course of a season. Toronto is basically hoping John Tavares can make up for both of them.
San Jose is perennially the team that should hit a wall due to their age and then it never happens. I fully expect that to be the case again, since they just have a lot of good players. Barring injury, they’ll compete for the Pacific Division again. So, the Blues taking their #9 spot would basically revolve around the idea that the Blues are younger. We can’t prove St. Louis has more cohesion though.
Lastly, you look at Vegas and who knows what to expect. Was 2017-18 just a magical ride, spurred on by a tragic event in the city that united everyone behind it? Or, even despite some losses in James Neal and David Perron, the latter of which the Blues also picked up, is Vegas built to sustain their success? I think it’s a mix.
They have some good players and found a really good mix within their roster. Adding Paul Stastny, no matter how we feel his tenure with the Blues went, can only help. There simply has to be a regression to the mean though. I’m not saying they can’t challenge for the division and make more playoff noise, but teams will know what to expect more this time. Like facing a pitcher or hitter for the first time ever, you don’t have film and have no notes to defend off of. That will be different and Vegas will have an extra struggle or two.
Can we really say the Blues are better? Clearly our bias will suggest yes, and St. Louis made more significant changes. However, Vegas only needed tweaking whereas the Blues needed a small overhaul. The players they brought in are better, but is the roster enough better to suggest moving the Blues up to 7? You can make a case, but it is not a strong one.
Ultimately, the Blues are probably right where they should be. They should definitely be considered a playoff team and maybe even a dark horse contender.
They are better than almost all the teams below them, such as Philly, Columbus, Calgary and Colorado. Only Los Angeles and Anaheim have a case to swap places with the Blues in this list. However, the Ducks really only added Luke Schenn and L.A. threw around a lot of money with no guarantee their deals will work out in their favor.
In the end, this is all just fan banter. Power Rankings are only to form discussions like this one. They hold no real value and teams could not care less about them, unless there is some GM out there creating burner accounts to slam the writer.
That said, it is still fun to have your two cents about it all. The Blues are about where they should be with wiggle room to move up or fall down. It’ll all depend on what they do on the ice in the fall, but it’s been a rather interesting summer overall.