St. Louis Blues report card following an encouraging season
The St. Louis Blues played better than we anticipated down the stretch, meaning their overall report card for the 2023-24 season could receive decent marks.
While they didn’t earn a playoff berth, the St. Louis Blues still took a ninth-place finish in the Western Conference standings and could still be poised to make a run in 2025, but their lineup may need far more work than their overall points total suggests.
When you look at this team’s advanced numbers, you will know what I’m talking about and why they seem to be much further from competing than their overall points total this season may otherwise suggest.
How bad did it get? Let’s take a deep dive and grade just how well this team played in the offensive and defensive zones before we finish up with special teams and finally add an overall pass/fail grade.
The St. Louis Blues struggled in the offensive zone
The Blues may have progressed in points this season, but they regressed in goals scored, dropping from 263 and 16th in the league in 2022-23 to just 239 this past season and 24th place out of 32 teams. This left the Blues to average just 2.91 goals per game, and if you can point to any reason this team missed the playoffs, it was their lack of scoring.
Despite this, St. Louis did have quite a few high-end scorers this season, with five players finding twine 26 times or more. Jordan Kyrou hit the 30-goal mark for the second year running in his age-25 season, and he will be a fixture in St. Louis for quite some time, along with Robert Thomas, who led the team with 86 points.
Jake Neighbours burst onto the scene with 27 scores, while Pavel Buchnevich and Brandon Saad scored 27 and 26, respectively. The sheer number of high-end scorers in St. Louis indicates this team may just need depth scoring in free agency to get a leg up in consistency.
It’s one of those situations where I would give the Blues play in the offensive zone a solid A, but lack of depth scoring brings them to a C-plus. Still, a depth scorer or two shouldn’t cost Doug Armstrong much this summer if he’s willing to bring them in - or perhaps he has a youngster already in the lineup for the job?
Defensive zone play was bad, but goaltending kept this team in games
With a negative goals for to goals allowed ratio, you may be wondering how the Blues stuck around in the playoff race for so long. You can thank their incredible goaltending for that, as Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer were one of the better tandems in the league.
Together, the duo logged a near-0.600 quality start percentage, a 2.78 GAA, and a 0.913 save percentage, complete with just 11 ‘really bad starts.’ If Binnington and Hofer give the Blues the same performance next season and they improve in the offensive zone, their chances of playing hockey 365 days from now are much, much better.
But it will take a better effort overall in the defensive zone as the Blues finished with the eighth-highest shots against with 2,636, or 32.14 per game. Their overall inability to retrieve pucks and disrupt plays limited the team’s time in the offensive zone, which likely contributed to St. Louis’ less-than-stellar scoring.
We know this because the Blues were the third-worst team in the NHL in Corsi For at 5-on-5, which sat at just 45.9, ahead of only the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks. Once again, we’re looking at high marks for the goaltending and low marks for the team’s overall defensive zone play, leading to yet another C-plus. The defensive rotation must step up, and perhaps another defense-first forward will also help this offseason.
Special teams play needs to get better for next season
Special teams play was also no better than average, as the Blues penalty kill unit finished with the 13th-worst percentage in the league at 78.6. Ironically, they tied for fourth in the NHL with 11 shorthanded goals and were one of just eight teams to score double-digits in the category. But you’d think they would rather have stopped a few more power play goals from finding twine.
The Blues also scored on just 18.00 percent of their power play opportunities, putting them in the bottom 10 of the league. They were also the third-worst among teams in the Western Conference, with only the Calgary Flames and Chicago Blackhawks converting fewer.
Returning to the playoffs following a two-year layoff will be much easier if the power play and penalty kill get their respective acts together. The man advantage especially, since the Blues are too good of a team to have finished in the bottom eight.
Unlike the previous two sections, the special teams don’t deserve a passing grade, even if they weren’t so poor that they ranked in the bottom five in their respective categories. That said, they’re getting a solid D for as far as the 2023-24 season goes. The numbers don’t lie, and Doug Armstrong must either overhaul the unit or find better assistants to remedy this issue.
Verdict
While the Blues played well enough to at least resemble playoff contenders in 2023-24, their basic and advanced numbers show us why they missed the postseason. Overall, they were a flat and uninspiring team that was tough to watch at times.
The Blues may have even left you wondering how they even made it as far in the playoff race as they did, even if it never seemed like this team had an advantage and played from behind. Given their bland play in every facet of the game sans goaltending, which was the reason they at least kept things interesting, the Blues will finish the year with a generous C-plus.
It was tempting to give them something even less, but Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer saved this team from a below-average grade. Next season, the objective should be simple: Make life easier for Binnington and Hofer, and the wins and points will come.
It’s tough to see the Blues doing this with the current lineup, so supplementary help is badly needed. Armstrong has a pair of youngsters in Zach Dean and Zachary Bolduc who would step up, but he needs to see what will be available in the free agency market. If Armstrong wants to win, there is no way he can go into 2024-25 with the same lineup he had last season.
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(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)