Regardless of how you look at it, the St. Louis Blues might be the NHL’s funnest team this season if they keep up their breathtaking play, regardless if they win or lose. Through three games, we’ve seen as many thrilling outings from the Blues, but how much impact has this team made?
You can argue that they’re an inconsistent group, playing some below-average hockey before putting forth just enough effort and big plays to make things interesting. So tonight, I figured we’d look at some hard numbers to see exactly how well the Blues are faring throughout the early stages of the 2024-25 season.
As it stands, they converted each power play opportunity 33.3 percent of the time. Sure, six 5-on-4 advantages is a small sample size, but one that tells us the power play, at least through three games, looks like it’s trending north. No, it won’t stay at 33.3 percent, but the man advantage could settle around the 23-24 percent mark, and that should be enough for fans.
The penalty kill is also off to a hot start, allowing just one goal in five opportunities. This tells us special teams are, so far, up overall.
Are the St. Louis Blues as good as their first three games show?
Their shooting percentage as a team is a solid 12.6 percent but just 8.2 percent at 5-on-5. This tells me the Blues would fare better if they drew more penalties, given the early returns we’ve seen from their power play.
They are struggling to keep opponents from getting open looks, allowing nearly 30 shots on goal per game. This isn’t a terrible number, but when you look at their 0.888 save percentage overall and 0.905 save percentage at 5-on-5, the Blues must do more to prevent scoring chances.
The good news? At 5-on-5, they’re looking good in the Corsi For, which stands at 52.1 percent. This shows that the Blues are creating more chances than they’re giving up, and should this trend continue, they can get away with so-so defense at times. But the issue is that I wouldn’t want to see them get overly reliant on what has been, so far, a one-dimensional team.
I say this because they’re struggling with a horrible habit of giving up high-danger chances, with 36 so far on the year, or 12 per game at 5-on-5. As for scoring chances against? 73. So, they know where most of their work needs to be done: figuring things out defensively.
Therefore, are the Blues as good as their early record indicates? Offensively, yes. Special teams, yes. Defensively, no. But if they can figure things out when they don’t have the puck and stay consistent when they have the puck, the Blues will surprise critics this season.