2024-2025 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread.

[Bye Bye Blueston]

HockeyViz does NOT have much faith in the Blues this season:

View attachment 911098

Here's their full season preview:

Season Preview 24-25


That would mean we burned them 2x in one offseason.

This model looks worse than Dom’s!

 

[Brian39]

FWIW, HockeyViz pegged us at 87 points last year and correctly projected 13 of the 16 playoff teams (they had New Jersey, Minnesota, and Calgary in with Vancouver, Washington, and Nashville out). They correctly predicted the worst 6 teams in hockey, although they had them in a different order. Like most models, there are some individual things that look absurd as a single data point, but last year's projections were decent vs the results of the season.

Their D valuation looks as bad as every other public model's does. Perunovich has the most positive impact of all our D and Gudas, Severson, and Gustafson are all top 25 D men in the league. I still haven't seen a model that is both good at evaluating D and predicting team results.

All in all, their model is projecting a big improvement from the bottom of the league. Last year they had 7 teams with an average point total below 83, with San Jose and Chicago tied for worst at 76. This year's just has us and Chicago below 83 tied for last at 81. While I'm not expecting us to be a bottom 2 team in the league, I do agree that the truly terrible teams from last year should be much closer to competency this season.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

HockeyViz does NOT have much faith in the Blues this season:

View attachment 911098

Here's their full season preview:

Season Preview 24-25


That would mean we burned them 2x in one offseason.

I welcome stuff like this.

I expect the Blues to be more competitive, but I wouldn't be horribly disappointed if the wheels inexplicably fell off and we ended up with a top 2-3 pick. I think that's probably the Blues last crack at a high draft pick in a long while.

 

[Reality Czech]

I would sort of chuckle if Edmonton plucked Alexandrov off waivers.

A spite claim? Do it, Stan.

 

[Blanick]

HockeyViz does NOT have much faith in the Blues this season:

View attachment 911098

Here's their full season preview:

Season Preview 24-25


That would mean we burned them 2x in one offseason.

Its kind of weird. Almost all the analytics guys are picking us to finish in bottom 5. Meanwhile I have listened to way too many standings prediction hockey podcast the past month and the consensus is that we are a stronger team than we were last season. We barely missed the playoffs last season. The truth is nobody really seems to have a strong read on this team. I think it was the Spittin Chicklets podcast where someone said they would be surprised to see the Blues win the central but wouldn't be surprised to see us land anywhere from 2nd or 3rd all the way to dead last.

Edit: I will also point out that the Blues have consistently outperformed advanced statistic models the past few years, whether it be standings or playoff matchups. I am convinced it is why Dom from The Athletic hates us. I remember when we beat the Wild in the first round a few years back and Dom was flabbergasted as to how because his model had something like 96% chance for the Wild to win.

 

[Celtic Note]

That would mean we burned them 2x in one offseason.

Exactly!

 

[HighNote]

I'm trying to imagine all of the things that would have to happen for us to end up in last place.

 

[Thallis]

I'm trying to imagine all of the things that would have to happen for us to end up in last place.

It's really not that much. If Broberg isn't an NHL player, Neighbours shoots under 10%, and Binnington is just average we're close. Throw in any real injury to the top 3 forwards and that's really all that needs to happen. You scoring depth is tremendously thin and Parayko is our only top pairing D.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I'm trying to imagine all of the things that would have to happen for us to end up in last place.

Agreed. I don’t expect us to make playoffs, but expecting us to be worst team in league is odd. Even more odd than projecting Canes as top team in league.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Its kind of weird. Almost all the analytics guys are picking us to finish in bottom 5. Meanwhile I have listened to way too many standings prediction hockey podcast the past month and the consensus is that we are a stronger team than we were last season. We barely missed the playoffs last season. The truth is nobody really seems to have a strong read on this team. I think it was the Spittin Chicklets podcast where someone said they would be surprised to see the Blues win the central but wouldn't be surprised to see us land anywhere from 2nd or 3rd all the way to dead last.

Edit: I will also point out that the Blues have consistently outperformed advanced statistic models the past few years, whether it be standings or playoff matchups. I am convinced it is why Dom from The Athletic hates us. I remember when we beat the Wild in the first round a few years back and Dom was flabbergasted as to how because his model had something like 96% chance for the Wild to win.

His dislike for the Blues started when we won the Cup, his model had the Bruins at ~75%, with them winning in 5 as the most likely outcome. Then it's gotten worse as the team has fairly regularly outperformed his model.

 

[HighNote]

It's really not that much. If Broberg isn't an NHL player, Neighbours shoots under 10%, and Binnington is just average we're close. Throw in any real injury to the top 3 forwards and that's really all that needs to happen. You scoring depth is tremendously thin and Parayko is our only top pairing D.

Those things bring us to the bottom 10 but nowhere close to last.

 

[Thallis]

Those things bring us to the bottom 10 but nowhere close to last.

I think one of those things brings us to bottom 10. Hell we could be bottom 10 with none of those things happening. Last is a stretch, but it's within the realm of possible outcomes without anything drastic happening.

 

[HighNote]

I think one of those things brings us to bottom 10. Hell we could be bottom 10 with none of those things happening. Last is a stretch, but it's within the realm of possible outcomes without anything drastic happening.

I think you maybe underestimate what it takes to be last place. Last place teams don't have a handful of high end players like Buchnevich, Thomas, Kyrou, Parayko and Binnington. They have maybe 1 or two of those guys and not nearly as much depth as we do. Think about a player like Walker playing in the middle six for the entire season. Schenn competing to be your leading scorer. Your top pairing is Leddy-Kessel and the net is shared between a 2 guys that are both backup goalies. That is the type of team to be last.

 

[Stealth JD]

Those things bring us to the bottom 10 but nowhere close to last.

Thomas injury sinks this club regardless of everyone else performing as expected.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

If the Blues are going to be bad this year, I hope they’re awful.

 

[jjniner]

Here is to J Faulk having a fabulous year and us getting a ton for him at the trade deadline!

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

I'm not too concerned with our projections. I feel pretty comfortable saying we're going to see a handful of players outproduce their prior year outputs: Broberg, Holloway, Texier, etc., but while I see this is a likely result, the model simply can't capture that based on prior year outputs. We're also banking a lot of our improvement of our overall defensive structure and that isn't always captured well by these models.

I see this team closer to a 86 point team on paper as we sit here today with the knowledge that we have that can't be captured by these models. We have a lot of opportunities to improve on that if certain players progress as expected, goaltending holds up, our overall defensive structure and possession numbers improve, roster additions. This could push them into playoff contention. I also see several areas where they could be easily derailed: injuries to Thomas, Parayko, etc., chemistry issues early in the season, etc.

I can't see this team bottoming out, but I could see this team improving in a lot of ways but still falling well short of last season's point total even though I think they're much better than last year's squad.

I honestly don't care if they make the playoffs this season. I'll be happy if they do because it meant a lot of players took positive steps toward where we need them to be and that we cleaned up a lot of the issues that plagued us last season. I still think we're one season and a couple key additions away from being at the point where we can expect playoffs.

 

[taylord22]

If Faksa does indeed succeed as being that shut down specialist to pull the full load off Thomas, you're very likely increasing possession numbers, which is a HUGE knock on the Blues in the models.

I do also expect to see a bit more consistency in the PK and PP with the additions of Faksa/Joseph/Broberg, and with Bannister keying in on the PP needing a one time threat.

On the other side though, I do worry that the amount of 'new' players combined with whatever changes Bannister is going to make may make for a rough start. That combined with our injury luck likely not matching last year, I could see a very wide range of outcomes for this team.

All that being said, I vehemently disagree with The Athletic narrative that we're in the murky middle/directionless. If we know we're not going to make the playoffs, this team is VERY well positioned to sell off vets for assets and bring in a strong collection of youth talent to the big club to finish out the year.

 

[HighNote]

Thomas injury sinks this club regardless of everyone else performing as expected.

Not to last place. Likely not even bottom 5.

 

[Brian39]

I think you maybe underestimate what it takes to be last place. Last place teams don't have a handful of high end players like Buchnevich, Thomas, Kyrou, Parayko and Binnington. They have maybe 1 or two of those guys and not nearly as much depth as we do. Think about a player like Walker playing in the middle six for the entire season. Schenn competing to be your leading scorer. Your top pairing is Leddy-Kessel and the net is shared between a 2 guys that are both backup goalies. That is the type of team to be last.

That's the makeup of those teams in a lot of years, usually when there are multiple teams tanking. You see that a lot when there is a super hyped draft class. 2023 was one of those draft classes that causes multiple teams to intentionally be as bad as possible and we've seen the outcome of that for the last couple seasons.

2025 isn't one of those classes, but 2026 might be. The result is that there aren't teams that are selling everything that isn't bolted down the way multiple teams did for 2022/23. I don't really see any truly putrid teams that are trying to go backwards instead of forwards.

Chicago brought in actual NHL players and will be integrating more of their high end young talent into the mix. Same thing with San Jose and Anaheim. I don't expect any of these teams to be good, but they should be competing in way more nights and a double-digit standings point improvement is very much on the table for all of them.

Montreal has had a disastrous preseason with Laine and Reinbacher both suffering what appear to be long term injuries. But neither of those guys played a game for Habs last season and they were a 76 point team. Utah looks improved following a 77 point season. Ottawa brought in a legit #1 to try and fix their biggest issue and they had 78 points last year. Seattle had 81 points and bought this summer. The Devils had 81 points and made a move to address the atrocious goaltending.

That leaves us with just Columbus and Calgary left out of the teams that finished below a .500 points percentage.

I think Columbus will be awful. However, their coaching situation last year was about as bad as it could get, they added a couple NHL players, and I could see a team like them rally around the Gaudreau tragedy to be a passable NHL team at home. I could very much see them being a 70-75 point team (as bad as they were, they had 66 points last year).

Calgary should be tanking as hard as possible, but ownership is clearly not interested in doing that and they kept targeting/acquiring NHL players as they sold the old core. They aren't going to be good this year, but I could see them being a 70-75 point team.

In 2018/19 the last place team had 64 points and everyone else in the league was 70+. Ottawa is the team that finished in last. They entered the season with Mark Stone and Matt Duchene in their mid-20s, a 22 year old Chabot (who got Norris votes that year), rookie Brady Tkachuk, and a decent chunk of quality vets. I could see this year's last place team looking a lot more like that group than the dogshit teams that have been at the bottom of the league recently.

I expect the Blues to be better than that, but not a ton has to go wrong for us to be around that level.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

I think we need to temper our expectations a bit. We are currently using one of our best wingers as our 2C and we have to pray that Schenn can handle a lesser role as the 3C or that Faksa isn't gassed by the quarter mark of the season as 3C - with no idea who plays 4C if Faksa is 3C.

Then you add in the fact that Binnington, as much as I love him, probably isn't the second best goalie in the league again this year.

Then you add in the fact that our PP last year was putrid, and now Krug (As much as you hate him, you gotta admit he was a quality PP QB) is out and Peru still looks like he can't handle a regular NHL shift - Faulk kinda sucks on the PP too.

We also had the best injury luck I've ever seen last year, and our OT record was amazing.

Now all that said, there's a lot that could go right and we could surprise. But let's be really honest, the range of outcomes on this team is pretty damn wide.

 

[Stealth JD]

Not to last place. Likely not even bottom 5.

Disagree. Blues were a one-line team last year WITH Thomas. Take him out of the line-up and build four forward lines. It would rival some of the worst teams in the league.
With a mediocre defense, and average special teams, this team would be toast. Bottom-five for sure.

 

[Reality Czech]

Disagree. Blues were a one-line team last year WITH Thomas. Take him out of the line-up and build four forward lines. It would rival some of the worst teams in the league.
With a mediocre defense, and average special teams, this team would be toast. Bottom-five for sure.

Hopefully our other $8 million man can take a step forward and drive the play on his own more often this year. Buchy didn't have the most consistent year either. Both of those guys can and should be better this season. Schenn also had a down year, so there's plenty of room for improvement in the forward group aside from Thomas. Whether or not that actually happens, guess we'll find out.

 

[HighNote]

Disagree. Blues were a one-line team last year WITH Thomas. Take him out of the line-up and build four forward lines. It would rival some of the worst teams in the league.
With a mediocre defense, and average special teams, this team would be toast. Bottom-five for sure.

Bolduc - Buchnevich - Kyrou
Saad - Holloway - Neighbours
Schenn - Faksa - Texier
Toropchenko - Walker/Sundqvist - Joseph/Kapanen

Center depth is pretty bad and a lot would hinge on Buch, but we're still deep enough to avoid sniffing last. Our depth is what I think will keep us afloat if a big name like Thomas goes down. If we iced that forward group the entire year, I think it would be safe to say that we'd be bottom 10, probably somewhere from 5th-10th worst. Now if both Thomas and Parayko are gone for the year, then we start talking about bottom 5 with a chance at last.

We'll be a bubble team. I'm thinking somewhere from 14th to 18th in the league, but I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up a few spots in either direction from that range depending on if we over/underachieve and injuries. If things go horribly wrong I could see us sniffing 5th worst in the league, but I simply cannot imagine how awful the season would have to go for us to go any lower. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it would take a helluva a lot to go wrong for it to happen.

It's also worth mentioning that teams that have worse lineups than us can and will have injuries to sink them even lower than us. So not only would we need to have lots go wrong, but it would also be contingent on other bad teams avoiding the same things we couldn't.

 

[Stealth JD]

That’s a second line, a third line and two fourth lines. Hideous for an NHL roster. They’d be behind Utah and Chicago for sure.