3 ways the St. Louis Blues can maximize their chances to reach the NHL playoffs
The St. Louis Blues are still well behind in the wild card race, but they still have hope to reach the NHL playoffs in 2024 if they can improve three areas of their game.
Quite a few teams find themselves on the outside of the two wild card spots in the Eastern and Western Conferences, and the St. Louis Blues are one of them, six points behind the Vegas Golden Knights for that second spot in the West. Sitting so many points out at this time of the year seems bleak, but it’s also not over for the Blues if they start playing better hockey.
That hasn’t been the case lately, as St. Louis is just 8-8-1 since the All-Star Break. They have also had a tough time finding the back of the net all season, with 187 goals scored in 66 games, good for a meager 2.83 goals per.
But this hasn’t entirely been a bad season for the Blues, since they have had stretches when they were a top 10 team in the NHL. No, that hasn’t been the case since their 4-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on February 13th, but in the preceding months, the Blues showed us that this lineup is capable of winning often.
St. Louis Blues can still maximize their chances to make the NHL playoffs
Note the keyword: Maximize. Right now, time isn’t on the Blues side, as they must revert to their winning ways from earlier in the season, hope the Golden Knights hit another rough patch, that the Minnesota Wild and the Nashville Predators fall back into mediocrity, and that the Seattle Kraken avoid making another run.
It’s a lot to ask, but anything can happen during these final few weeks of what has been a long but exciting season. So, how can the Blues maximize their chances of stealing a wild card spot this April?
Keep reading to discover three things they must start doing right now to put themselves in a position to shock the NHL universe.
Consistent defense will lead to more wins down the stretch
If the Blues have been one of the better teams in the NHL in one area, it’s been in the defensive zone. They remain in the top half of the league, albeit barely, in goals allowed with 201, or just over three per game.
Much of this has to do with the duo that is Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer, who collectively had a 0.585 quality starts percentage, a 0.912 save percentage, and a serviceable 2.84 GAA before last night’s win over the Los Angeles Kings. The latter number can stand to decrease, and more consistent defense will help the two goaltenders achieve that.
Currently, the Blues are allowing 32.3 shots against per game, which is the eighth-highest in the NHL. If that number dips to 28 or under, expect this team to win a few more games than most in league circles would expect.
That hasn’t been the case lately, as from February 13th to March 13th, the Blues have allowed an astounding 34.4 shots on goal per. Unfortunately, the number shows just how much of a downturn this team has been in over the past month, but that hasn’t been the case all season.
Rediscover what made the team so hot between mid-December and mid-February
The Blues were one of the NHL’s better teams between December 14th and February 11th, boasting a 15-7-1 record in that stretch, and their 1.35 points per game was seventh in the NHL. So, through a two-month stretch, St. Louis wasn’t just one of the better teams in the league; they were a top 10 team, and fifth in the West in the points per game category.
But, winning hockey games consistently was not all that made St. Louis such a dynamic group during that span. They excelled on the man advantage, converting 27.5 percent of their opportunities into goals, and only the Colorado Avalanche enjoyed a higher conversion rate in the West.
They also faced fewer shots on goal per game, at 31.1, or 3.3 fewer than what they are dealing with now. It’s true that they still weren’t logging an ideal number of shots on goal at the time, but they also enjoyed a solid 11.1 shooting percentage, which ranked fifth in the Western Conference.
The Blues were also stepping up when it mattered the most, as eight of their 15 wins in their stretch came by one goal. Of those eight wins, four occurred either in overtime or in a shootout.
To play hockey reminiscent of what we saw during this span, the power play needs to perform the way it did. St. Louis must find ways to cut down on shots allowed, and they also need a better shot selection.
Put the puck onto the sticks of playmakers and get it to the net
The Blues are nowhere near one of the better scoring teams in hockey, even during arguably their best stretch of the season. They only scored 71 times in those 23 games, good for just 3.09 goals per game, which averages to a solid, but unspectacular 253 through an 82-game stretch.
When you put that result against last season’s overall number, it would have ranked 20th in the NHL, and just seven goals fewer than the 260 St. Louis scored last season. To improve those numbers, the Blues must find a way to get the puck onto their best players’ sticks more often, and that comes with playing a better overall game in the offensive zone.
Luckily for the Blues, they have playmakers who can make this happen, most notably Pavel Buchnevich, Robert Thomas, Jake Neighbours, Jordan Kyrou, and Brandon Saad. Each has scored between 20 and 24 times this season, and they have a solid shooting percentage between 14.2 and 17.8 percent sans Kyrou, who is sitting at 10.8 percent.
Knowing they have players who can find the net often is reassuring, but they can’t score if they don’t have an opportunity to. With just 1,879 shots on goal, the Blues have just 28.4 per game, and that number needs to increase to the over 30 mark. For as long as they remain in the playoff race, they must get more shots to the net, ideally with the players listed above.
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(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference and QuantHockey)