Uphill Battle: Who Needs To Step Up For St. Louis Blues To Win

JORDAN BINNINGTON

Obviously, any team’s most important player in the postseason is their goaltender. Jordan Binnington was the last line of defense in 2019 and is expected to be the same going into this year’s playoffs.

As the tournament progresses, the war of attrition takes over and it is absolutely essential that Binnington is cool, calm, collected and – perhaps most importantly – confident going into Round 1. While he had a rocky start to the year, Binner has cleaned his game up quite a bit.

He had a strong April and May to give the Blues the chance they needed to make the final push for the playoffs. He’ll need to keep trending in the right direction if the Blues are looking to stand a fighting chance.

JUSTIN FAULK

Boy, to be Justin Faulk right now. Last season, the man was thrust into a position where he was doomed to fail in a year where his predecessor was destined to flee.

He took flack from everyone in every zip code from here to the Sun for not “producing.” Now, one year, and one less Alex Pietrangelo later, seems to me like no one’s all that upset with that seven-year contract at the present moment.

Faulk has looked solid this year, even though he trailed off a bit in the second half. With Colton Parayko, Faulk is now an anchor for this team on the blue line at even strength, and that confidence needs to be there against a high-flying Colorado team.

At just under a half-point per-game, his scoring will be exactly the secondary-offense the Blues will need when they can’t break through. He needs to keep it up.

TOREY KRUG

This is Torey Krug‘s first circuit as a St. Louis Blue and the talk around the league has been that he isn’t scoring near as much as many thought he would. This is fair, except that his 32 points leads the team in points from a defenseman and at .63 PPG, he’s on pace for just over 51 points in an 82-game season.

That would be the third-highest season points total in his career.

At 30 years old, this is exactly what you’d want from Krug as a contributor to the offense from the back end. As this will also be his first postseason in the NHL with a non-Boston team, it is essential that Krug put his aggressive instincts front-and-center from the get-go with a new team and defensive-core around him, and a literal (figurative?) Avalanche constantly in his face.

People wanted goals from him. I’m perfectly happy with those rebounds and tips. Fire away, Torey.