Are the St. Louis Blues playing up to preseason expectations in mid-November?

The St. Louis Blues are in a situation that, throughout the preseason, none of us thought they’d be the most relevant team. But, I also stated they’d be entering a crucial part of their early-season schedule a few days back, the second of which begins/began tonight against the Buffalo Sabres, and it may set the tone for at least the rest of the calendar year.

By the time you read this piece, chances are the Blues will have either won or lost that contest, and it will shed more light on whether this team is playing as advertised so far in what has been an up-and-down early stage to the 2024-25 campaign. 

As I write this, the Blues are locked into sixth place in the Central Division, with 14 points to show for it. They’re currently 7-9-0, and much of that has come from inconsistent play all over the ice. We see this in the Blues goals for to goals against ratio, which is 40 to 55, and good for 28th and 27th in the league, respectively. 

Yeah, they’re not that good, but how much better would they be if star players Robert Thomas and Philip Broberg were part of the lineup? You can argue that they could be at or even slightly above 0.500, but as far as 2024-25 goes, they would, at best, find themselves at expectations. So the bar isn’t and was never set too highly.

You can argue that the St. Louis Blues are meeting expectations

While Drew Bannister isn’t exactly a new coach in Gateway City, he’s still in his first full season and, therefore, learning how to navigate an entire 82-game schedule. Bannister was only the bench boss for a little over half of the 2023-24 campaign, and that gave him nothing more than a test run that he obviously passed. 

But with a ‘retooling’ effort going on coupled with a coach in his first full season, my question is this to any fan who expected more: What was there really to expect? This was a boring, aging hockey team for two seasons that needed a revamp, or else the Blues were going to be an irrelevant organization for a while. 

Whether that relevance would be a thing this year was hardly a question, made tougher with injuries not only to enticing youngsters like Thomas and Broberg, but also key veterans like Nick Leddy and Torey Krug. Adversity has been the name of the Blues game this season, and it’s not something we’ll see alleviating soon. 

That said, the Blues are lucky to be 7-9-0 heading into their matchup with the Sabres. And if you give Drew Bannister a full season and watch the youngsters continue to grow, then this time next year, 7-9-0 would be something we can label as ‘underperforming.’