I’m pretty sympathetic to this point of view, except that when I look around the division I’m not terribly impressed that any other team is significantly better.The compressed season really alters things. Normally I'd wait until about 30 games to start forming up thoughts about the team, and then I'd re-evaluate in the 50-60 game range when it's time to start thinking about the trade deadline and whatnot. It's just hard to take 12 games as a meaningful indicator of much of anything, even thought it's a fifth of this season.
With those caveats firmly in place, I will say that a fringe top 10 offense, a fringe top 10 defense, and two bottom 5 special teams units do not a contender make.
The Blues are not hard to play against right now, at least by the standard of the last couple years. But they score and the goaltending from Binnington is good enough to win with, even steal games at times. I like him for the post-season.
I believe they can become harder to play against, and expect Berube to get them there. If that’s what happens by season’s end, I’d say they are a contender just as much as any team from the West.