There Is No Reason To Think The St. Louis Blues Cannot Repeat

It may be the middle of July, but the St. Louis Blues roster is all but set, and despite staying quiet this offseason, there is should still be optimism in the team.

The St. Louis Blues have done nothing this offseason except resign their own players and make a handful of depth moves to strengthen their minor league system. Although the team could still make more moves, the Blues seem content with the roster they have.

St. Louis still has three restricted free agents to sign before the season starts in October and there is no indication that the team will not be tendering contract offers to Joel Edmundson, Ivan Barbashev or Oskar Sundqvist.

For argument’s sake, let’s assume that all three of those players will be around for the team in the 2019-20 season.

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There are a lot of things you can point at when it comes to reasons why the Blues had never won a Stanley Cup before this season.

The most significant contributor that I can think of, at least in recent memory, is goaltending. All of the past Stanley Cup winners have had world-class goalies in the crease for their championship seasons. Matt Murray, Brandon Holtby and now Jordan Binnington.

Binnington is the key to how the Blues will move forward in the coming years. He has just signed a two year deal with the team and will be an unrestricted free agent when the contract is over.

As long as Binnington is in St. Louis, the Blues will have as good a chance as anyone to win the Cup. Binner is the difference between the Blues of 2018-19 and the Blues of the past that broke the hearts of so many fans.

Offensively, the case could be made that the Blues are getting older and that their window may be smaller than Stanley Cup champions of years past. However, what people call older, I like to call more experienced.

Only Sundqvist had been a part of a Stanley Cup-winning team before St. Louis won last season, but now, everyone on the Blues roster knows what it takes to win it all.

Even though players like Alexander Steen, Jay Bouwmeester, and Carl Gunnarsson are getting older, they are still significant contributors to the team’s success.

Even if those “old” players regress this season, St. Louis still has young players waiting in the wings to get their chance to contribute. Players like Binnington, Sammy Blais and Mackenzie MacEachern all made impacts on the Blues season a year ago.

Next year, you could be hearing names like Jordan Kyrou, Klim Kostin or Mitch Reinke playing for St. Louis. All three are highly regarded prospects for the team and are close to making an impact on the team.

The Central Divison has gotten a lot better. The Stars, Avalanche, Predators, and Jets all figure to be fighting with the Blues for five playoff spots in the Western Conference, but as long as Binnington is Binnington, there is no reason to think the Blues cannot be really good again next year.