Observations From Blues' 3-1 Win Vs. Wild

The road has not been kind to the St. Louis Blues this season. In fact, it's been so unkind, that they haven't been able to celebrate a win in 2026 as of yet.

Until now.

The Blues ended their 10-game road losing streak with a finely-crafted 3-1 win over the Minnesota Wild at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul, Minn. on Sunday.

Pavel Buchnevich scored the eventual game-winning goal with 3:39 remaining and had an assist, Robert Thomas had a goal and an assist in his first game since Jan. 10 and Logan Mailloux scored for the Blues (22-29-9), who last won a road game on Dec. 20, 2025, 6-2 against the Florida Panthers. Joel Hofer had himself another sharp performance with 22 saves for the Blues, who had lost four of five, including 3-1 at home against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday but have won two of three out of the Olympic break.

Let's look at Sunday's game observations:

* Robert Thomas -- Sunday's game was a prime example of why if you're the Blues' management, you don't even listen to all the trade noise surrounding your No. 1 center.

Thomas, who missed 13 games after having a right leg procedure and was away from the team since Wednesday for personal reasons, had his hands all over this game in a positive way for the Blues.

 You want to talk about a 200-foot goal, this is it when a puck is in the D-zone corner, Thomas gets in there, eventually wedges out a Wild skater and wins a puck, outlets to Brayden Schenn, who transitions out of the zone, but Thomas follows the play, gets it in stride through the neutral zone and into the O-zone, drops a pass to Mailloux and takes defenseman Quinn Hughes with him to give Mailloux enough of a lane to wire a shot past Filip Gustavsson with 1:55 left in the second period to tie the game 1-1:

It came not long after Kirill Kaprizov gave the Wild a 1-0 lead at 16:09with a power-play goal that never should have been a power play when Jack Finley was wrongfully called for a high stick when it was Daemon Hunt's stick that caught Kaprizov with friendly fire. But it was a response goal that was really needed for a team playing the second of a back-to-back with travel against a rock solid side.

And when the Blues needed to put the game on ice, Thomas not only wins the face-off with the goalie pulled but deposits the puck into the empty net with 25 seconds remaining for the 3-1 win.

Thomas, who was on the ice for all three Blues goals and was a plus-3, had six shot attempts (three on goal) and won eight of 14 face-offs (57 percent) in 17:08 of ice time.

Listen, I understand anything can happen between now and Friday. Maybe Thomas and his camp go to Blues GM Doug Armstrong and ask out, maybe he doesn't. But in talking to him recently, this didn't sound like a player who was looking to move on when he was talking about going on a run to end the season.

Twenty-six-year-old No. 1 centers don't just pop in your lap. 

It's obvious that Thomas wasn't 100 percent all season. Maybe he won't be completely himself again until after a full off-season of working the kinks out of surgery and playing in rhythm again, but it's obvious that if you surround a player like this with the right pieces, whether it's a veteran or nurturing your young core (Jimmy Snuggrud, Dalibor Dvorsky, Justin Carbonneau(?), and so forth), you have a player here that impacts the game in so many different ways.

Now if you're Armstrong and someone comes to you with a ransom offer, of course you listen, and even consider it, but it would take that -- for me -- to even consider it.

Again, if you watched today's game, you know why this is a player you don't part away from, not unless you want to separate yourself from being relevant again for, say, 4-5 years down the road. A player under contract with five more years of term left? Hard pass on shedding that from my roster. But we'll see. 

* Logan Mailloux is coming into his own -- Remember the famous words of Hockey and Blues Hall of Famer Chris Pronger, who had quite the candid conversation with me regarding Mailloux earlier in the season when he said (among other things), "I don’t have a message to the people, it’s patience." 

That was in mid-October when Blues fans were ready to crucify the 22-year-old and call the trade with the Montreal Canadiens that sent fan-favorite Zack Bolduc to his home province.

In three games coming out of the Olympic break, Mailloux is a plus-4 and after playing a season-high 20:35 in the loss to the Devils, he followed it up with 20:32 on Sunday and was a plus-2 in the game. But it's the small details in his game that seem to really be coming along playing with Cam Fowler.

On Sunday, he was defending the front of the net again, breaking up plays, plays meant for the crease area and/or front of the net, and he seems to be shooting more pucks (I still think he can shoot it more) with three more shots on goal Sunday (nine the past three games) and by my count, six passes defended.

Colton Parayko (back spasms) missed his second straight game, and it's no coincidence that Mailloux had to be more of someone to grab a bigger role, including getting some shifts here of late on the penalty kill and he was used Saturday with an extra attacker role.

"Playing more minutes and stuff, I think me and Cam have started to play better together, whether it's the last 15-20 games like that. I feel like we've been progressing in the right direction. I just try to take it as it comes."

And when Blues coach Jim Montgomery said that Mailloux's last two practices before last Thursday's 5-1 win against the Seattle Kraken "were his best two practices of the year," and that players earn their ice time. We're seeing why Mailloux is earning more ice time of late.

* Buchnevich's offense finally breaking through -- Some of you may be saying, "Where has this best all year?" I get it. I'm one of them, and who would have thought that a move to the center ice position would finally unleash some of the veteran's offensive potential?

With a goal and an assist, it's a five-game point streak (five goals, three assists), goals in four of the past five games and 13 points (six goals, seven assists) the past 10 games.

It was the second game-winner of the season and 23rd of his career, but the goal that put the Blues ahead late in the third was a beauty that started with Snuggerud winning a puck off a wall battle, makes a nifty little backhand for Buchnevich to saunter into a shot that was pegged for the top left corner:

And of course late, Buchnevich is on the ice with Thomas and feeds him for the empty-netter.

Buchnevich, Jake Neighbours and Jordan Kyrou have been a constant line as of late for the Blues, with Buchnevich running the middle.

* Hofer save on former Blue -- The game was hanging in the balance, and Hofer, who already made one good save on Kaprizov breaking in on a play in the first period, made one of those 10-bell stops that was the difference between winning and losing when he gloved Vladimir Tarasenko from the slot with 31.7 seconds left in a 2-1 game:

That's now back-to-back games for Hofer allowing just one goal in a game, including the 5-1 win against the Kraken on Thursday; he has stopped 45 of 47 shots with a .957 save percentage.

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