Some of the best (and worst) teams in the NHL have one thing in common: A known identity. When you face an outstanding hockey team, you know they’re either a high-octane, high-scoring unit, one that will hit, intimidate, then laugh at you, or just win games with a methodic offensive or defensive approach. While the St. Louis Blues at least look okay this season, it’s safe to say they’re far from outstanding.
At the other end, you have the worst teams who you know don’t know how to score, or maybe they just can’t defend against anyone. Or, perhaps they’re just afraid to hit and intimidate opponents. Others are just so young and inexperienced that they have all the talent out there; they just don’t know how to play hockey at the NHL level. The Blues look lost sometimes, but we can also assume they’re far from the kind of team I just described above.
And this leads me to the burning question: Who are the Blues, and what can we continue to expect from November onward? I thought I had this question answered last week, believing there was no way the Blues would amount to anything after losing Robert Thomas and Philip Broberg. Turns out, they’ve had other ideas for the most part, and that’s not a bad thing.
Just who are the St. Louis Blues in 2024-25, and what will they look like?
Right now, the Blues aren’t a high-scoring team and they don’t look like they’ll become one, ranking just 25th in the league with 37 goals heading into tonight’s matchup. Maybe they’re more of a defense-first team, having given up 44 goals, which is good for 16th in the NHL.
But then again, they’re also allowing a lot of shots with 428, which is currently the 10th-highest in the league. They’re rather physical, however, averaging 24.14 hits per game, so maybe there’s something brewing with this team becoming a defense-first group.
If they cut down on allowing so many shots and can keep their record and points total hovering around 0.500, which is far better than I thought they’d fare in 2024-25, a hard-nosed, defensive approach could be on the menu here.
Right now, it’s nothing more than a wait-and-see approach, but maybe we’ll get more insight tonight and this upcoming week. The Blues are seemingly too talented to have an identity associated with the league’s worst teams, so that’s also something to be proud of. But if they want to become a better hockey team, they got to find a way to forge an identity that opponents will fear.