Analyzing how the Blues have been able to run the table
After reeling off a franchise-record 12 consecutive wins, the Blues are giving off 2019 vibes. Adam Vingan breaks down how they got here.
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It might be time for the St. Louis Blues to take “Gloria” out of mothballs.
After recently reeling off a franchise-record 12 consecutive wins, the Blues are giving off 2019 vibes. That season, they fired coach Mike Yeo after 19 games en route to the most improbable Stanley Cup win in NHL history.
This year’s edition of the Blues canned coach Drew Bannister after 22 games and has the league’s fifth-best points percentage (.649) since that decision. Jordan Binnington, who emerged from obscurity six years ago, is reminding Blues fans of that special run, posting a 1.84 goals-against average and .931 save percentage during a personal seven-game winning streak.
“Obviously, it’s a completely different team,” Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist, who was part of the Stanley Cup-winning club, told reporters. “We’re a younger, faster team now and (were) more experienced back in 2019. Walking into this locker room, it’s kind of the same feeling as 2019, how tight we are and how much fun we’re having, both on and off the ice. In that aspect, it’s very similar.”
When the Blues replaced Bannister with Jim Montgomery on Nov. 24, their playoff chances were at 17.4 per cent. Those odds plunged to 4.7 per cent at the start of the 4 Nations Face-Off break after St. Louis lost six of eight. Even after losing to the Winnipeg Jets on Monday, St. Louis’ 18-3-2 record since the regular season resumed is the best in the league.
Montgomery, despite being fired by the Boston Bruins in November, is certainly worthy of consideration for the Jack Adams Award. He would be the first coach in league history to receive a nomination while guiding multiple teams in one season. He has helped turn around the Blues by transforming them into one of the league’s stingiest teams over the past several months.
Specifically, St. Louis has vastly improved its rush defence, which ranked near the bottom of the league under Bannister. The Blues have allowed a league-low 22 goals off rush-scoring chances over Montgomery’s 57 games, an average of 0.39 per game. They averaged nearly one rush goal against per game with Bannister behind the bench (21 in 22 games).
The Blues have made it much more difficult for their opponents to exit the defensive zone cleanly. They have prevented successful plays following carry-out attempts at the third-highest rate since late November — up from 23rd before the coaching change. (Perhaps most impressively, the Blues have not wavered defensively without defenceman Colton Parayko, who has not played in a month because of a knee injury.)
“It’s been commitment by every forward in our lineup to run really good routes, especially our reloads and backchecking routes,” Montgomery told reporters. “Because of that, it’s allowed our defencemen, who skate really well, to have really tight gaps so we’re not giving up the blue line very much. We’re always coming back hard through the middle, which eliminates the odd-man rushes.”
Offensively, the Blues are being led by No. 1 centre Robert Thomas, whose 40 points since Feb. 1 are tied with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov for the most in the league. If not for a fractured ankle that forced him to miss 12 games near the beginning of the season, Thomas would be well on his way to a career year. (He has factored on 19 of St. Louis’ 28 goals over the past eight games, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)
Thomas’ 100 completed passes to the slot since Feb. 1 trail only Kucherov (109) over that span. The slot pass that set up Pavel Buchnevich’s goal Monday extended Thomas’ assist streak to eight games for the second time this season, making him the only player with two such streaks in 2024-25.
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Although Thomas is lighting it up lately, the Blues’ most effective forward line since the coaching change has featured Dylan Holloway, Brayden Schenn and Jordan Kyrou. They have outscored opponents 30-17 (28-14 at five-on-five) and generated 61.4 per cent of the expected goals at even strength under Montgomery. St. Louis hopes Holloway, who recently suffered a lower-body injury, can come back soon. The ex-Edmonton Oilers winger is second on the Blues with 26 goals, including a team-high eight game-winners.
The Blues missed out on clinching a playoff spot Monday by losing to the Jets, but it is merely a formality.
“I am (proud) of that group in there to be able to overcome all of the adversity we’ve had this year, whether that was self-inflicted by us, doesn’t matter,” Montgomery told reporters last week. “We’ve overcome it.”
