The St. Louis Blues aren’t going to get fixed in one summer. They are building themselves back up through draft and development, and that takes time.
But what the Blues can do is take a couple of steps toward where the club wants to be when it’s ready to contend again. That could include a major trade, clearing out the contracts of veterans, and filling in the gaps until prospects like Jimmy Snuggerud and Dalibor Dvorsky arrive.
In professional sports, every offseason is labeled important, and this one is no exception for the Blues. However, when you include that they need a permanent head coach, this is as pivotal of an offseason as any in recent memory.
If general manager Doug Armstrong is going to put this organization in a better spot by October, he has a lot of phone calls in front of him. And with the Blues’ season ending with a 2-1 shootout loss Wednesday night in Dallas, he’s on the clock.
In no particular order, here are my five offseason priorities for a franchise that finished with 92 points in the first full year of its retool.
1. Name a head coach
Unless the Blues give the reins to interim coach Drew Bannister at their season wrap-up news conference Thursday, an announcement on the next coach might not be imminent.
I wrote about this situation earlier this week and named Joel Quenneville and Denver University’s David Carle as potential candidates for the Blues. I also mentioned that Bannister remains in the mix. But if Armstrong doesn’t give the job to Bannister now, it seems clear he’s waiting on something, whether it’s NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s reinstating Quenneville or Carle’s deciding on leaving the Pioneers.
If it’s Carle, keep this in mind: The last few high-profile college coaches to jump to the NHL didn’t do so until May.
- On May 18, 2015, Dave Hakstol went from the University of North Dakota to the Philadelphia Flyers.
- On May 4, 2018, Jim Montgomery went from Denver University to the Dallas Stars.
- On May 19, 2018, David Quinn went from Boston University to the New York Rangers.
This isn’t to suggest that Quenneville, Carle and Bannister are the only options. But since Armstrong has had since mid-December to identify whom he wants, his list has likely been narrowed to a select few candidates for a while.
Some fans might say the Blues could be waiting for a coach from a current playoff team to become available. Perhaps, but please don’t get your hopes up about the Carolina Hurricanes’ Rod Brind’Amour, whose contract is expiring, or the Boston Bruins’ Jim Montgomery, who isn’t expected to be going anywhere even if the Bruins fall in the first round like last year.
2. Find a second-line center
The Blues can rest assured they have their No. 1 center in Robert Thomas. This wasn’t a breakout season for Thomas in terms of discovering that he’s a good player, but it was from the standpoint of his ability to do all the things that add up to a complete player.
Now, what about somebody who can center the second line? Brayden Schenn was in that spot for much of the season, and he did reach the 20-goal plateau for the eighth time in his career. But seven of those goals came after the Blues moved him to the wing.
Schenn is perhaps best suited on the wing, and with Snuggerud’s deciding to stay at the University of Minnesota, there will be a need there. If Schenn does play in the middle, perhaps it would be on the third line, making Kevin Hayes a bottom-six winger.
So whom would the Blues have up the middle behind Thomas? Will the Pavel Buchnevich experiment continue? Prospect Dvorsky will be in training camp, but that’s perhaps asking a lot from last year’s No. 10 pick who will turn 19 years old in June.
How about free agency? The Blues have about $13 million in projected salary-cap space for the 2024-25 season, and that could become more if they move any of their big contracts. However, the expectation is that the organization will not spend to the $87.5 million cap ceiling, nor would they want to sign a free agent to a lengthy deal if it’s going to block Dvorsky’s progression in the coming years.
But Armstrong will have to find a center somewhere, either signing a second-tier guy in free agency or finding a trade partner this summer.
Brayden Schenn has been nominated for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, which is given annually to the player who “best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.” #stlblues https://t.co/gP4QuHSXiM
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) April 17, 2024
3. Add secondary scoring
The Blues had five players with 25-plus goals this season: Jordan Kyrou (31), Buchnevich (27), Jake Neighbours (27), Brandon Saad (26) and Thomas (26).
There were four teams in the NHL this season that had at least five 25-goal scorers, and two of them (Dallas Stars, New York Rangers) made the playoffs, and two of them (St. Louis Blues, New Jersey Devils) did not.
So it’s not an end-all, be-all statistic, but it does speak to the need for more secondary scoring. It’s a bit unfair to compare the Blues’ lineup to that of a Stanley Cup contender, but just for comparison’s sake, the Blues had nine players with nine-plus goals, and the Stars had 13 and the Rangers had 12.
Blues winger Kasperi Kapanen averaged more than 14 minutes of ice time in 73 games for the Blues this season — much of it in the top six — and he finished with six goals and 22 points. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent this summer, and the club will have to come up with an upgrade.
Are there any in-house candidates at forward who can help, like Neighbours did this season? Rookie Zack Bolduc showed a scoring touch with five goals in 25 games after being called up from AHL Springfield this season, so he could be that guy.
But also, the Blues have to get some offensive support from their defensemen. The team had 36 goals from the blue line in 2022-23 and just 23 this season. Colton Parayko had nearly half of them with 10, followed by Torey Krug (4), Nick Leddy (3), Justin Faulk (2), Marco Scandella (2), Matthew Kessel (1) and Tyler Tucker (1).
Blues double-digit scorers
4. Make move(s) on defense
Last April, Armstrong said that if the Blues’ defense had another season like 2022-23, there would be changes. Things were a little better. After allowing 188 five-on-five goals (eighth most in the NHL), they allowed 167 this season (15th most). But though Parayko and Leddy had a good season together as the top pair, a lot of that improvement could be attributed to goaltenders Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer combining for the fifth-best save percentage in the league.
The blue line must be addressed this offseason, and some added size would help.
The second pair of Krug and Faulk played nearly 800 five-on-five minutes together, and they were on the ice for 28 goals for and 39 against. Faulk suffered a high ankle sprain in December and dealt with another injury late in the year, as did Krug, but they were not as productive as the Blues needed when both were healthy and in the lineup.
It’s been well documented that the Blues attempted to trade Krug to the Philadelphia Flyers last summer but to no avail. Krug and Faulk have three more seasons left on their contracts with identical $6.5 million cap hits. Both also have full-trade clauses for one more year before they become modified no-trade clauses in summer 2025.
So with that as the backdrop, can the Blues find a way to deal one of them this summer? Some fans have mentioned the idea of a buyout, but as addressed in a recent mailbag, that doesn’t sound like something for which the team would have the financial appetite.
The Blues would have to find replacements, whether it’s a swap like the reported Krug-for-Travis Sanheim deal with the Flyers that fell through, or in free agency. The team has Kessel and Tucker under contract next season, and Scott Perunovich is a restricted free agent this summer, but it’s uncertain how comfortable the club would be with them in the top four full time.
5. Get grittier
There are more important priorities for the Blues this summer, but at some point, they have to find more players with an edge to their game. In other words, they need more guys like Nathan Walker and Alexey Toropchenko.
There were too many vanilla players on the roster this season: Saad, Leddy, Hayes, Kapanen, Parayko, Krug, Faulk, Perunovich. Even Buchnevich, for all the feistiness he’s shown in the past, doesn’t do it on a regular basis. They’re good players, and having a few of those types of guys on the team is fine, but having too many of them leads to a lack of personality on the ice.
This isn’t about dropping the gloves, necessarily. It’s about playing hard, which can often lead to penalties, particularly roughing minors. The Blues took 232 minor penalties this season, which was the third fewest in the NHL. That’s a good thing, yes, but included in that total were just 14 roughing penalties, which was the second fewest in the league.
Let’s be fair and provide some context: Just four of the top 14 teams on this list (Florida, 70; Tampa Bay/Toronto, 45; and Boston, 40) made the playoffs this season. But in the middle of the pack on this list, there are plenty of postseason teams (Los Angeles, 35; New York Rangers, 34; Carolina/Vancouver, 32; Washington, 28; Colorado, 26; and Edmonton, 24).
The Blues were ahead of just one team (Dallas, 6), which, again, proves that this statistic requires some context, as the Stars are a top team in the Western Conference.
That said, Armstrong would serve this roster well if he could find more grit this summer.
(Photo of Brayden Schenn: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
