Thomas emerged as a top-line center, ready to improve going forward

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- When the St. Louis Blues decided to part ways with the versatile Ryan O'Reilly, it was a changing of the guard of sorts.

Who would emerge as the No. 1 center with O'Reilly's time in St. Louis, which included fulfilling a promise of winning a Stanley Cup and winning the Conn Smythe Trophy in doing so in 2019, up?

The Blues knew who they had waiting in the wings, and they were ready to give Robert Thomas, who was a winger on the Stanley Cup-winning side learning the ropes, those keys.

Thomas had already take on the leadership role last season with an 'A' and was part of it this season with Colton Parayko and Justin Faulk, along with Brayden Schenn as captain.

But now Thomas, 24, is the anchor of the forwards. It's his time. And he showed why there's plenty to look forward to after the season he had in 2023-24.

Thomas put up a career-high 86 points on 26 goals, 60 assists, the most points by a Blue since the late Pavol Demitra had 93 in 2002-03; and he became the first Blue with 60 assists since Craig Janney had 68 in 1993-94 and became a first-time All-Star in doing so.

And it didn't matter who was on a line with Thomas, whether it was Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich, Brayden Schenn, Jake Neighbours, Brandon Saad, even Alexey Toropchenko, Thomas was able to produce.

Thomas shot the puck lots more (170 on goal), he put a career-high face-off percentage (53.1 percent) and minutes played (20:57).

On top of putting up the most points by a Blue this season, Thomas drew all the tough assignments, so having to deal with the Nathan MacKinnons, the Connor McDavids, the Nikita Kucherovs, the Auston Matthews of the world and all the other top-rated players around the league, for Thomas to be able to blossom and put last year's dip in production behind him said he's ready to accept the challenge of being the top guy.

"Yeah, I think I took another step forward throughout my career," Thomas said. "It gets me excited. You don't know kind of what your ceiling is. I think I surprised myself a little bit this year. I'm really excited to kind of find out how it plays out.

"I would say (Thomas developed) quite a lot of things to be honest. I can still take another step defensively, face-offs. Those are two things that I can continue to improve on. I think my shot was a lot better this year. Just keep on working on situations to use it. I think that'll continue to create more options to pass as well."

But if you talk to Thomas, it wasn't enough, and that's where the leadership kicks in. It wasn't enough because the Blues, who did make an improvement from 81 points to 92 point this season by going 43-33-6, didn't make the playoffs, and that's what matters most.

"It's obviously disappointing. You want to be in the playoffs," Thomas said. "You want to be fighting for a chance to win it all, so that part's disappointing. But there's a lot of positives to take. You look at last year to this year, I think we took a huge jump forward and I felt like we beat a lot of really good teams this year. We're right there and I think there's a lot of positives to take into next year."

The Blues have only had 13 100-point or more seasons in their history. Bernie Federko and Brett Hull account for eight of them; Adam Oates has done it twice; Doug Gilmour, Craig Janney and Brendan Shanahan was the latest to do so when he had 102 points (52 goals, 50 assists) in 1993-94.

Thomas has the best chance to be the next if his trajectory continues to climb.

"Well, I think Robby has really proven that he's an elite player in this league, obviously with the All-Star nomination," Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said. "But the way he played this year, the amount of minutes he played this year, the amount of meaningful minutes he played this year against top lines, and how he competed, and how he showed up to play every day ... I don't know what the ceiling is for Robby, but I still think we haven't seen his ceiling. I think there's a player there that's going to continue to get better, that's going to continue to grow in his role as a leader, and certainly continue to build on his game and get better because I still think there's quite a high ceiling there."

His 70 takeaways were tied for ninth in the NHL, and his 876 face-offs won were third in the league behind Sidney Crosby (1,081) and Vincent Trocheck (881). So when it comes to things Thomas wants to improve on, it's not just the points, it's everything, and that's what excites him most about the way things can shape up moving forward.

"You can feel that culture coming back and that's what's exciting to be here for a long time is you see that future and you see where the team's headed and the direction," Thomas said. "It's exciting."