The St. Louis Blues have started the 2024-25 season strongly, but Adam Proteau says a trio of Blues forwards need to step up if their team is going to qualify for the playoffs this year.
Jordan Kyrou celebrates with the bench after scoring a goal against the Seattle KrakenIn the opinion of this writer, the St. Louis Blues aren’t going to be a playoff team this season. But let’s give credit where it’s due – the Blues have begun the year in a feisty way, going 2-1-0 in their first three games. And it looks like three players in particular – forwards Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich – are going to make themselves household names this season.
In St. Louis, Blues fans have appreciated all three aforementioned players for some time now. But let’s be honest – if you had to pick Kyrou, Buchnevich and Thomas out of a lineup, could you do it? Most casual hockey fans probably couldn’t, and that’s okay. It often takes many years of sustained success for players in markets that aren’t hockey hotbeds to show up on the radar of fans across the continent and around the world. And that’s the challenge for the trio of Blues players right now.
Certainly, if Kyrou can improve on his best NHL seasons – the 2022-23 campaign, when he posted 37 goals, and in 2021-22, when he generated 75 points – people are going to stand up and take notice. The same goes for Thomas, who had a breakout year last season with 60 assists and 86 points. And Buchnevich also has had solid success thus far, putting up 30 goals and 76 points in 2021-22.
The Blues really don’t have a generational talent, per se – and that’s one of the reasons many pundits have them finishing out of the playoff picture. However, as we’ve seen thus far this season, the culture in St. Louis won’t allow Blues players to be satisfied with mediocrity. And Blues GM Doug Armstrong isn’t going to sit by idly and allow his team to sink to the bottom of the notably-improved Central Division. Instead, we expect the Blues to make moves during the season to get them into playoff contention, but that all starts with the performance of their key veterans up front.
The Blues have shown in three games that offense isn’t going to be a problem this season, as they’ve averaged nearly four goals per game thus far. That’s a major improvement from last season, when St. Louis had the eighth-worst goals-for per-game average (2.85) in the entire league. They were a middle-of-the-road team on defense last year, and that may still prove to be an issue for them this season. But if Thomas, Kyrou and Buchnevich can improve their contributions on offense, they’ll take pressure off the defense corps and goaltending to do all the heavy lifting this year.
The Blues aren’t all that far removed from winning a Stanley Cup in 2019, but the era of the squad that did win it all – a core that included former Blues stars Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko and Alex Pietrangelo – is now well back in the rearview mirror. This new generation of St. Louis foundational players centers around Kyrou, Thomas and Buchnevich, so the challenge for them is clear and considerable.
Armstrong has made it obvious he wants nothing less than a playoff berth this season, and if the aforementioned trio can’t get the job done and lead the Blues to the post-season, the GM could find his team at a crossroads with his core next summer. But at present, Blues brass believe their lineup has what it takes to be a playoff team – and by the time the regular season is over, Armstrong could be right in his faith in the team, and St. Louis’ key forwards could be well-known by Central Division rivals and fans alike.