Last season, Jordan Kyrou led the St. Louis Blues in goals scored with 31, but as we all know, his play was never the most consistent. While Kyrou can score between 30 and 40 goals perennially, putting faith in him after what wasn’t his best effort last year isn’t the best way for a team to dig its way out of the scoring slump that was.
Jake Neighbours was an excellent surprise, putting away 27 goals and notching an 18.6 shooting percentage. But logic tells me that’s not happening this season, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he slumped a little one year after taking the league by surprise. That said, it also wouldn’t surprise me if he broke out, so he’s arguably the team’s most interesting player to watch.
Brayden Schenn and Brandon Saad are on the older side, and while I see average numbers, neither player will step up or exceed expectations. Meanwhile, Robert Thomas is an excellent player, but he’s better suited as a playmaker, and there’s nothing wrong with that, considering the damage he can do.
This leaves just one player, and that’s Pavel Buchnevich. One reason Buchnevich should face the pressure of stepping up more than he ever has throughout his career is that, thanks to the lucrative deal he signed this past offseason, he’s made it clear that Gateway City will be his home.
Pavel Buchnevich should be on the hot seat for the St. Louis Blues
This isn’t the hot seat in a traditional sense, as it’s not like Pavel Buchnevich will be going anywhere if he doesn’t improve his productivity. He wasn’t bad last season with 27 goals and 63 points, but Buchnevich also disappeared for stretches in the goal-scoring department.
Now that he’s part of the Blues long-term core, that inconsistency needs to end in 2024-25, especially if the Blues are giving opponents a tough time early in the year. He had a solid 13.0 shooting percentage, but that’s well under his career percentage of 14.6.
Overall, it implies two things: Buchnevich needs to take more shots at the net than the 207 he put up last year, and he’d do well with better shot selection. While 207 shots on goal ranked second on the team and isn’t a bad number, it was well behind Jordan Kyrou’s 251.
Should Buchnevich threaten the 250 mark and hit roughly a 14.6 shooting percentage again, he’s looking at an epic season, one with between 36 and 37 goals, and that would make a tremendous difference for the Blues if he became more consistent, something Blues fans need to see from here on out.