Who are the Blues?
The team that stormed to a 5-0-0 start?
The team that played average hockey for a long stretch?
The team that lost a bunch of key players yet found ways to unlock wins?
Many seasons, by the holiday season, we can confidently identify a team’s makeup — but this season?
It’s hard to say who the Blues are now, let alone who they’ll be come playoff time.
So we have to hunt for hints.
“We’ve had an evolving roster,” defenseman Justin Faulk said Monday as the Blues prepared for two huge games — star-studded Edmonton in town Wednesday, which is the Blues’ first game in 10 days, and then Saturday’s Winter Classic at Minnesota. “We haven’t necessarily played many games with what we would probably consider our full lineup, and that’s the way it is. I don’t want to talk just strictly like it’s (only) us saying that we don’t know what’s going on because every team in the league has been dealing with this. But we believe in the group that we have in there.”
To me, the reason to believe in the group is because their best players haven’t been their best players. If fellows such as Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron and Brayden Schenn find fitness and ascend to their status — while the other players continue to play-make — then the Blues could become a delightfully dangerous club.
In today’s 10 a.m. video, columnist Ben Hochman discusses the anticipated return of the Blues’ Robert Thomas, linemates with Vladimir Tarasenko and Pavel Buchnevich. And, as always, Hochman picks a random St. Louis Cards card out of the hat.
In the playoffs, you need depth to go deep. The Blues are built with depth. We’re seeing their minor league players make major impacts of late. And we know that when (if) the Blues are healthy, they load their lines with loads. Ivan Barbashev is the perfect example of this. He plays heavy hockey, leading all Blues with 52 hits, and he’s also third on the team in points (25). And he can play on a third line. In fact, when he returns from the COVID list, that’s where I’d put him, as Robert Thomas will likely take over in between Pavel Buchnevich and Vladimir Tarasenko.
The thought of Barbashev and Schenn alongside Jordan Kyrou on the third line is mouthguard-watering.
But it’s hard enough to name the Blues’ line for the next game, let alone next week or month. With so many players who have been on the COVID list or injured, much of this season’s outcomes have been determined by intangibles — resilience and perseverance and, well, chance. The Blues have caught a few teams without their top players due to COVID, while a few teams have caught the Blues by surprise (the home loss to the Coyotes could be the game we all point to if St. Louis just misses the playoffs).
That’s another thing — we talk about how the Blues could do in the playoffs, but they’ve got to make the playoffs first. The stat site MoneyPuck.com gives the Blues just a 57.5% chance to make the playoffs. And the site’s power rankings, calculated by its win probability model, has the Blues ranked 18th in the National Hockey League. This serves as caution. But still, it doesn’t deter me from thinking that coach Craig Berube’s Blues, playing his “north” style of cycle hockey, can navigate its way to wins.
“I think I have a pretty good gauge,” Berube said optimistically, when asked about what his team is — and how good it can be. “I think we’ve seen a few different things that we’ve seen throughout the season with our team. Our great start, then kind of like dropped down a little bit there for a bit where we didn’t play great hockey and things weren’t going right. But then, a lot of that was COVID and different things that were involved. I think there’s always things involved.
“And then, the last month here where we’re decimated with injuries and COVID and playing short, but, you know, when you play a simple game, you play hard and you compete at a high level, you get results. So I think there are a number of things that our team has been through this year and we can learn from.
“We’re just going to keep trying to improve and get better throughout the season, so when you get to springtime, you’re giving yourself a chance.”
The most exciting development is the return of Thomas to action. The 22-year-old has 22 points in his 24 games played. Yes, only two of those points are goals. He has the same amount of goals as Klim Kostin, James Neal and Niko Mikkola. But the assists!
It’s been quite the year for assists in this town. The Cardinals finished third in the National League in outfield assists, and the guy who led in outfield assists (Dylan Carlson) was the only starter not to win a Gold Glove; St. Louis U. basketball’s Yuri Collins currently leads the nation in assists per game (7.9); St. Louis U. soccer standout John Klein led the nation in assists (15).
And Thomas might be the best assist man of all of them, and he returns to one of the hotter lines in hockey. Buchnevich and Tarasenko and Thomas is worth the price of admission.
The Blues’ defense has improved of late with Mikkola meshing with Colton Parayko, and the goaltending has been golden (though Jordan Binnington won’t get a chance to play for the gold medal, now that NHL players won’t be in the Olympics).
So here we go. The Blues should return to game action on Wednesday. Even with Christmas over, this is the season of perpetual hope.
“You know, we’re in a good spot right now,” Faulk said. “We’ve been playing pretty good hockey, and we’re going to get healthy bodies back but at the same time, you need to be able to put it together. You can’t just sit here and say that we’re a good team.”
