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Your St. Louis Blues have gotten more done over the last calendar month. Heading into Thursday’s game at Boston, the Blues were 6-4-5 in since Nov. 3 for a points percentage (.567) that ranked 13th overall and 6th among Western Conference teams.
The Note’s upturn in success, while modest, should be duly noted. The team’s recent bottom-line results are certainly better than the 3-7-2 start to the season that dumped them 29th among 32 teams with a .423 points percentage.
But I’m not buying …
Reasons:
1) The Blues still are gasping to score goals. This season, they’ve netted two or fewer goals in 48.1 percent of their 27 games. Only three NHL teams have had more games of scoring no more than two goals. And even while going 6-4-5 in their last 19 games, the Blues ranked 31st in the NHL with a rate of 2.29 goals per 60 minutes … and were dead last with 1.98 five-on-five goals per 60.
2) The Blues aren’t getting enough from important individuals. The scoring droughts are absolutely ridiculous. I’ll lay it out in a different way to show you how many empty days/nights of hockey there’ve been for some vanishing Blues.
When you read these numbers, keep in mind the Blues had played 27 games this season as of this writing.
– Pavel Buchnevich scored a goal in only three of his 27 games. And that includes only one goal in his last 19 games despite clocking 347 minutes of ice time. That’s a whole lotta no-show.
– Dylan Holloway has failed to score in 19 of the 27 games and hasn’t notched an assist in 21 of the 27. Until recently Holloway’s impact had softened from his first season in St. Louis. And make no mistake, Holloway can be an impact player. He had five goals in his last 12 goals and the Blues went 4-3-5.
– Brayden Schenn didn’t score in 23 of his 27 games, and hasn’t recorded an assist in 22 of the 27.
– Jordan Kyrou has heated up to some extent. But the speedster-sniper, considered to be the team’s best scorer, came up empty in 18 of his first 26 games. And there were no assists from Kyrou in 19 of the 26. More recently, Kyrou has scored just four times in his last 259 minutes of ice time.
– Jimmy Snuggerud – who just went on the IL with a wrist injury – is still in the very early stages of his career, so I don’t want to bark too much here. But before suffering the injury Snuggerud had one goal in his last 15 games.
– Defenseman Colton Parayko scored 16 goals in 64 games last season – but was still looking for his first goal through 27 games and 621 minutes of ice time.
– Defenseman Cam Fowler provided an average of 2.0 points per 60 minutes; so far this season his points rate is 1.1 per 60. Fowler had nine goals in 51 games after being traded to the Blues last season. He has one goal in his first 27 games this season.
3. The goaltending has improved, but I still don’t trust it. After a disastrous start to the season, Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer have settled down (for the most part) to perform more consistently. For weeks the Blues were wallowing at the bottom of the NHL in save percentage but the slump is easing. During the Blues’ 6-4-5 upswing over the last month, their tandem ranks 15th in save percentage (.900) at all strengths. Their combined save percentage at five-on-five is even better over that time – a .910 save rate that ranks 12th.
I do like the quality-start rate as a quick-and-easy measure of goaltending consistency. And through the first 27 games Binnington and Hofer had combined for a subpar quality-start percentage of 44.4. Hofer (36.4%) was much worse than Binnington in the quality-start stat. Earlier this week The Athletic ranked the NL goaltending tandems for each team, and Binnington and Hofer were deemed the worst at No. 32.
4. Injuries are a factor. All NHL teams have to hang tough to survive the inevitable injury crunch. But the Blues’ margin between a win or a loss is quite thin. Snuggerud will miss significant time after undergoing wrist surgery. And the Blues’ effective fourth line is shredded after injuries to Nathan Walker and Alexey Toropchenko.
5. Between the lack of scoring punch and shaky goaltending, the Blues are too vulnerable. The Blues’ .400 winning percentage when leading after the first period ranks 31st among 32 teams. Their 6-2 record when leading after 40 minutes may look OK, but that .750 win percentage is 22nd.
The Blues have a .412 winning percentage when scoring the game’s first goal. That ranks 26th. And when the Blues don’t score first, they’re 2-7-1 for a .200 winning percentage.
The Blues crumble in tie games. When tied after the first period their .333 winning percentage ranks 30th. When tied through two periods, their .250 winning percentage ranks 31st. And when a tied Blues game spills into overtime, they’re a horrific 0-7. That was seven opportunities to come away with two points, but the Blues failed to get it done in all seven overtimes, and picked up only a point each time.
This team has a disturbing shortage of resiliency, and can’t win many tight games. They squander too many leads. They fumble too many chances to score. Through the first 27 games St. Louis controlled 52 percent of the high-danger shots – but scored only 40.7% of the high-danger goals. There are too many blank spaces among Blues’ scorers, and too many open spaces in the team's goaltending.
According to MoneyPuck, the Blues entered Thursday’s game at Boston with a 9.7 percent shot of making the playoffs. It’s not impossible, and we can repeat the stories about 2019. We can repeat the stories about how Jim Montgomery came in as coach in late November of last season to put a charge into a phlegmatic, low-energy team after the Blues fired Drew Bannister. The Blues beat long odds and made the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Can they do it again? Well, the Blues have 55 games remaining (54 after Boston) and that’s a lot of time to work on a comeback. But this roster is clearly a problem.
And the Blues front office can’t bring Jim Montgomery in to perform another emergency coaching job to save the season. Because Jim Montgomery is already here.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst.
Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball.
Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows.
And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.