Yeah, the St. Louis Blues have been one scary team lately. I mean, when you go up against a perennial Vezina contender and continue to make his play look fragile, you’re more than doing something right. And while Connor Hellebuyck should be scrambling to find a way to figure this team out, he needs to consider himself lucky.
Really? Even after allowing most of the 12 goals the Blues scored in Games 3 and 4, Hellebuyck should be lucky? Well yeah, because even after all the damage the Blues have caused, they haven’t quite been at full strength.
If you’ve been following the team closely throughout the last few weeks, you know where I’m going with this. If you don’t, you now know that the Blues have been playing a high-octane game without one of their best young forwards.
What would the Blues look like if they had an upstart forward healthy?
Dylan Holloway has been the Blues most improved player this season. Easily. He ended his 77-game season with 26 goals, 63 points, and a plus-21. Holloway’s average total ice time resided at just a modest 16:49, and we can only imagine what kind of damage he could’ve done if he were in the 18-19-minute range all year.
And he’s got a bit of Brady Tkachuk in him, too, playing a high-octane game offensively, but never afraid to lay body checks. He may lack Tkachuk’s willingness to exchange greetings after seemingly every stoppage in play, but the correlations are there with his aggressive play.
So, if the Blues had a high-octane scorer like Holloway, who finished second in goals scored behind only Jordan Kyrou this season, and a big hitter, would they still be tied 2-2? Maybe, but you can argue Holloway’s presence could’ve contributed to a few more shots on goal and scoring chances, given the impact he made this season.
The Blues remain on an upward trend even without Dylan Holloway
Still, the Blues performance over the past two games, and even their effort in Games 1 and 2, show us they can fare rather well against the Presidents’ Trophy winners without Holloway. This obviously isn’t saying that the Blues don’t miss him, because his presence would take the team even further.
But the question is, what are they going to look like when Holloway’s healthy enough to take the ice for a playoff game? At the time of this writing, whether he returns for the postseason this year is still up in the air, but wow, talk about a momentum booster at the right time should the Blues advance.
It just shows what head coach Jim Montgomery has done with this hockey team since he stepped on board at roughly the quarter-season mark. The Blues went from a bland team to one opponents need to account for, and throughout the process, Holloway has quietly become a star. Now, if they put one and one together, this is not a team I’d want to play.