3 way too early reasons to be optimistic for the St. Louis Blues in 2024-25

The St. Louis Blues were a decent group in 2023-24, even if they came with a few flaws. But even in May 2024, we can get excited for the following season.

St Louis Blues v Anaheim Ducks
St Louis Blues v Anaheim Ducks / Sean M. Haffey/GettyImages
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The St. Louis Blues may not have played as well as their overall record and points total suggested, but it shouldn’t mean this team is on more of a backslide. No, they didn’t enjoy a phenomenal year, but 92 points in 2023-24 means this team would shock nobody if they snuck into the NHL Playoffs next season should another quality player or two wind up in Gateway City. 

The Blues also proved they still have plenty of strengths, including one at arguably the game’s most important position. That strength should continue improving as the 2024-25 season progresses after it begins in October, and expect it to bring a few more wins. 

So, despite the rather bleak results in 2023-24 despite 92 points in the process, let’s elaborate further on why you can be optimistic about this team before the 2024 offseason even commences.

The Blues scoring won’t take any more steps backward

If you want some reassurance, take one look at the Blues statistics from this past season and check out who their highest points-producers were: You had Robert Thomas in his age-24 season and Jordan Kyrou (age-25) leading the way, but it gets better when you look at players who found the net more than anyone else. 

Kyrou led the team with 31 goals, and Thomas finished tied for fourth with 26, but Jake Neighbours (age-21 season) tied for second with 27. While he had just 21 points in 2023-24, Alexey Toropchenko also showed off some scoring upside with 14 goals in his age-24 campaign. 

Zachary Bolduc is one player who I can see joining them next season if the 25-game sample size he put forth holds any water. Bolduc scored five goals and logged nine points, putting him on pace for between 16 and 17 goals through 82 games, and this was during his age-20 season. 

This is a pivotal offseason for Bolduc, but he’s shown enough scoring potential to where it shouldn’t surprise you if he ended the 2024-25 campaign with between 20 and 25 goals at minimum. If and when he hits that mark and if the players listed earlier keep improving, the Blues will have a stellar albeit underrated scoring group.  

The goaltending will be the team’s biggest strength

This one should go without saying, as it’s easy to argue Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer put up better and more consistent results than the Blues forwards and defensive rotation. Both reached a 0.913 save percentage, and while we expected nothing less from Binnington despite coming off a couple of down seasons, Hofer was especially impressive since 2023-24 served as his first major test. 

Now that Hofer knows what it’s like to play for an extended timeframe, every Blues fan should be curious to see what he will do in his age-24 season. But because he’s so young and even ahead of most goaltenders his age, it’s more than okay to be optimistic that the young netminder will enjoy an even greater 2024-25 season. 

As for Binnington, his bounce-back campaign should be reassuring, as his 0.913 save percentage, 2.84 GAA, three shutouts, and 0.600 quality starts percentage served as a turning point from a pair of ultra-pedestrian seasons. Between 2021-22 and 2022-23, Binnington finished with just an 0.897 save percentage, a 3.24 GAA, a sub-.500 quality starts percentage, and four shutouts in 97 starts. 

The timeshare worked well for Binnington, and Hofer should take a few more games from the former in 2024-25, resulting in even better results. 

The Blues proved they can win when in the right situation in 2023-24

If there’s one thing the Blues did that can just be annoying to opponents - and that’s a good thing - they showed they can win without scoring often. This doesn’t mean 239 goals scored will be acceptable in 2024-25, but thanks to sound play from Binnington and Hofer, it also means they don’t need an elite scoring unit to be successful. 

Sure, we would ideally see the Blues land in the top 10 in the goal-scoring realm, but it’s not necessary. If the forwards mentioned a couple of slides ago keep steadily improving and others like Brandon Saad, Brayden Schenn, and Pavel Buchnevich stay consistent, this team can realistically hit the century mark in points. 

All they need is good goaltending and serviceable results in both zones, and this team will at least give the wild card contenders more of a run than they did in 2023-24, not that they were doing a bad job this past March and April. 

Ideally, should they go get help to put them in a better position to make a jump from 2023-24 to 2024-25? Of course, but even if general manager Doug Armstrong made minimal moves, there are still a few reasons to believe that the Blues will end the 2024-25 season with a higher points total and a potential playoff appearance. 

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(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)

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