3 strategies the St. Louis Blues can pursue in the 2024 offseason

The St. Louis Blues may not be out of the playoff race yet, but the odds still aren’t in their favor, and they need to win more than their fair share of games while other teams must lose more than they’re winning. 

So, let’s assume for the sake of this article that everything remains equal and the Blues miss out on the playoffs, meaning they will be the ninth-best team in the Western Conference. And with a lineup that has underperformed this year, yet one that has shown it can at least contend for a wild card, it leaves the organization in quite the dilemma. 

On one end, they can add more talent since they will have enough cap space to fit a quality player onto the roster, even following inevitable qualifying offers and potential re-signings. Since there are very few pending unrestricted free agents coming up this offseason and the following offseason, there is a good chance they take this route.

There are three potential strategies the St. Louis Blues can take in the 2024 offseason

Then again, general manager Doug Armstrong also needs to be honest with the way this team has played over the past two seasons. They have shown they can be playoff-caliber this year. But we also need to ask ourselves whether he should just sell key assets while he can get something valuable for them and bring in an influx of young talent through the draft and the prospects pool.

Armstrong didn’t do this at the NHL trade deadline, and it could foreshadow that he doesn’t plan on taking this route in the offseason. There is also a hybrid role he can take, which entails selling off an asset or two to create space for a few more youngsters and rolling with a ‘retool’ instead of a full-scale rebuild.