Wow, the St. Louis Blues were nothing short of phenomenal from the end of the 4 Nations break to Game 82. I knew they played great hockey since they had some ground to make up, but even my jaw dropped when I saw the numbers.
How good were the Blues throughout this span? Honestly, they weren’t good. In fact, they weren’t even great. No, the Blues were among the NHL’s elite over their final 26 games of the regular season. Consider this: They finished the year with a 19-4-3 record, good for 41 points.
Per QuantHockey, the Blues were the best team in the league through that span, edging out the Los Angeles Kings, who had 40 points. The Blues also scored 100 goals and allowed 62 of them, good for a goal differential of plus-38. Not bad, right? Once again, you’re looking at an elite number here.
Blues can credit their legendary stretch for a playoff berth
But wait, it didn’t end there. The Blues power play scored 19 times on 69 attempts, good for a 27.5 conversion percentage. Yeah, and to think I called this team ‘bland’ once upon a time. Dear St. Louis Blues fans, I sincerely apologize. I mean, if the Blues take that kind of power play into their series with Winnipeg, they’re handing the hard-luck Jets a reality check real fast.
Their penalty kill also clicked, stopping 45 out of 55 tries, for an 81.8 penalty kill percentage. You all know how important special teams are to a team’s success in the postseason. Well, the Blues have both a dynamic penalty kill and power play to boost, with championship-caliber production.
They also knew how to win possession, evidenced with their 53.9 faceoff win percentage. It may be an underrated number, but the Blues winning faceoffs and giving themselves possession of the puck has been a focal point of the high-octane team they’ve transformed into over the past two months.
Yes, the Blues have a legitimate chance to upset the Jets
In sports, there’s something called peaking at the right time, and Blues fans are no strangers to it, having seen their team climb to the top of the mountain in 2019. Especially when they seemingly couldn’t figure out how to even climb that mountain early in the season.
When you look at the above numbers, you can’t help but utter the words ‘championship-caliber hockey.’ That’s the kind of squad the Blues have turned into since February 22nd, and the Jets or anyone else they may face would be foolish to take this No. 2 wild card team lightly. I mean, these stats listed above are just off-the-charts good, and it shows how much they’ve grown since Jim Montgomery took the reins.
There’s no guarantee the Blues will carry this momentum into the playoffs, now that the ante’s going up. But if anyone doubts that they can keep up with Winnipeg, just show them these numbers and you’ll shush the naysayers real quick.