St. Louis Blues Early 2024-25 Roster Prediction: Good, Bad And Ugly

The Sky Is Falling:

Line 1: Pavel Buchnevich, Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou

Line 2: Brandon Saad, Brayden Schenn, Jake Neighbours

Line 3: Alexey Toropchenko, Alexandre Texier, Kasperi Kapanen

Line 4: Mathieu Joseph, Oskar Sundqvist, Radek Faksa

This lineup could still be a playoff team, but it needs complete health and other teams to underperform. You essentially need a lot of things to go right for this lineup to have a decent amount of success.

I don't have any issues with any of these guys, but if this is the lineup the Blues have to use, it means nothing went their way in training camp. Bolduc wasn't ready to crack the starting lineup, Dvorsky didn't make the team and Dean wasn't ready either.

If this ends up being the lineup, we're relying on a lot of question marks. You're going back to the well on guys like Nathan Walker and Nikita Alexandrov to fill in the holes when you have injuries too.

Walker has more heart and determination than anyone in recent memory, but he just doesn't have the skill to play a full season. Alexandrov has potential, but he hasn't given the coaching staff a reason to not pull him from the lineup.

Saad still has the ability to play up on the second line, but if the Blues are depending on that, they're in rough shape. In a perfect world, you could have the Schenn and Saad combo on the third line, which would mean you've found unbelievable depth. That's not the case here.

Lastly, I don't have a big issue with Kapanen. When he's right, there's upside there and he can provide an offensive spark. Unfortunately, we have seen that while he's capable at his best, he's a ghost when he's not. The Blues need a contributor, either defensively or scoring goals.