The Blues came into this season hoping to stay in the playoff chase while simultaneously building for the future.
The latter goal remains attainable, especially with newcomers Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway looking like good long-term fits for the new team nucleus. Rookie Zack Bolduc is doing many little things well and Jake Neighbours seems determined to prove that last season鈥檚 breakout wasn鈥檛 a fluke.
But . . . the Robert Thomas injury will make the whole 鈥渟taying in the chase鈥 thing extremely difficult. He will miss a quarter of the season with a broken ankle and replacing all the things he does will be impossible for the remaining forwards.
Pavel Buchnevich鈥檚 experimental shift to center absolutely must work now. Holloway will get a chance to play center and raise his profile, but can he drive play? Oskar Sundqvist has an opportunity to reestablish himself coming back from knee surgery. Dalibor Dvorsky's development at Springfield in the AHL may become more of a front burner issue.
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Even defenseman Scott Perunovich is getting a look now, because perhaps his playmaking skills could boost the power play as coach Drew Bannister moves his pieces around.
The Blues took a 4-3-0 record on the road with them, but staying above .500 without Thomas may be impossible.
At least they can look around the league and see other teams dealing with adversity during the season鈥檚 first month:
- The Nashville Predators lost their first five games while high-priced newcomers Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault struggled to fit in offensively and hold their own defensively.
- The depleted Colorado Avalanche allowed 31 goals in the first seven games while suffering a minus-7 goal differential. Goaltender Alexandar Georgiev has a 4.99 goals-against average and the team is missing Devon Toews, Valeri Nichushkin, Gabriel Landeskog, Jonathan Drouin and Artturi Lehkonen.
- The Edmonton Oilers struggled early for the second straight year, this time stumbling to a 2-4-1 start.
- The Utah Hockey Club won three overtime games during their 4-2-1 start, but now they must deal with the simultaneous absence of defensemen John Marino and Sean Durzi, who face months-long recovery from surgery.
- The Philadelphia Flyers became surprisingly competitive last season under taskmaster John Tortorella. This season they started 1-5-1 and sank into the Eastern Conference cellar.
Here is what folks are writing about hockey:
Mark Spector, Sportsnet: 鈥淭he聽Edmonton Oilers聽are still (cough, cough) sick. Wildly entertaining on Tuesday night, sure. But not well. Not well at all. Half of their Top 6 鈥斅燴ach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Viktor Arvidsson 鈥斅爃asn鈥檛 scored a goal through seven games, a pedestrian 2-4-1 record that includes a wasteful 1-3-1 mark on home ice. Leon Draisaitl鈥檚 game is meh, and we鈥檒l say that Jeff Skinner has been better than most, his two goals this season looking like Brett Hull material on this ice-cold roster. Connor McDavid scored both goals in a 3-2 overtime loss to the聽Carolina Hurricanes聽on Tuesday, a game that would have been a regulation win had anybody else found the spark to light the lamp behind the stellar Frederik Anderson. The captain showed up. The same can't be said for some others. Evan Bouchard鈥檚 offence has been better than his defense thus far, and you can read that however you鈥檇 like. He has two points. The power play is wandering about in the dark, like Joe Biden building a midnight snack.鈥
Kristen Shilton, : “Listen, the Oilers have fooled us before. Last season Edmonton started 2-9-1 and turned things around so drastically they wound up in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. That's not to say history can repeat itself now, though. The Oilers' 1-4-0 start is nothing to feel good about, and shows there are an abundance of weaknesses in Edmonton's lineup that must be addressed. It's not that the Oilers aren't getting their chances. They were the better team against Dallas in the first period on Saturday, but couldn't capitalize. The Stars took over from there and that spelled trouble for the Oilers. If they can find ways to make the most of those opportunities going forward, it'll be a different story. On the plus side, Edmonton's depth has been solid. Jeff Skinner has four points in six games, Corey Perry has been his usual feisty self and there are significant signs of life on the back end. Edmonton has time to turn things around, but Knobloch must spread his talent out and let Draisaitl and McDavid drive their own lines. The goaltending and special teams must be locked into as well obviously, but what Edmonton needs more than ever is confidence. And that comes from stringing some wins together.”
Ryan Lambert, EP Rinkside: 鈥淟ots of discourse this week about what's wrong with the Bruins, whose underlying numbers are abysmal, who only have two regulation wins in seven games, and (speaking of contract years) whose coach doesn't have a contract locked in beyond this season. The Bruins are still technically holding onto a playoff spot (eighth in the East, so no great shakes) and are really only buoyed by the fact that the rest of the East either hasn't played a ton of games or kinda stinks. They're one of four East teams that have a .500 record right now, and if we're going by points percentage, they're technically ninth. It's easy to look at how everything has gone and say聽Jim Montgomery, who yelled at and lightly shoved聽Brad Marchand聽on the shoulder during the OT loss to Utah, might have worked himself into a position where he's the fall guy here. However, Marchand hasn't gotten going at all, and it's really only the fourth line that's scoring consistently at 5-on-5. Is that Montgomery's fault? You can certainly make the argument that he's not helping. And yeah I saw some guys on ESPN during Frozen Frenzy talking about the vibes just being bad, what with the聽Jeremy Swayman聽saga and all that. That honestly might be part of it, but because part of a coach's job is to manage the vibes (for lack of a better term), this is an issue. You can also make the argument that the team's failure to go out and get any sort of replacement for聽Patrice Bergeron聽and聽David Krejci聽in the past few years is, like, a huge problem.聽Don Sweeney鈥檚 solution of just doing it by committee with Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle聽and聽basically worked last season, and he added聽Elias Lindholm聽this past summer, but none of those guys are really No. 1 centers. If you're running those three down the middle behind an actual top-line guy, hoo boy, you're in great shape. And honestly the team should be better than this if those are their top three. But it's not like the wing depth is much better. Moreover,聽Joonas Korpisalo has been exactly as bad as he was advertising for most of his career, and the team hasn't really developed any forwards on the roster since 26-year-old聽Trent Frederic, who's not exactly聽David Pastrnak.鈥
Jason Chen, The Hockey News: 鈥淲innipeg is that bullied kid who sits there silently, just taking it, until one day they go Hulk mode, and we never mess with them again. Well, they鈥檙e throwing haymakers now after years of taking jabs about how no one wants to play there. Remember, they finished fourth in the NHL last season.鈥
Greg Wyshynski, : “The last two Western Conference finals matchups included the Dallas Stars. The last two Stanley Cup finals did not feature the Dallas Stars. Hence, this team is determined to get over the playoff hump. Despite two subsequent trips (2000 and 2020), the Stars have won the Stanley Cup only once, in 1999. With a team stacked with established stars (Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin), players in their prime (Jason Robertson, Miro Heiskanen) and young reinforcements (Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven) in front of franchise goalie Jake Oettinger, the mix might be right for the Stars to finally shine the brightest this season.”
Frank Seravelli, Daily Faceoff: 鈥(Tristan) Jarry鈥檚 in the second year of a five-year deal that pays him $5.375 million Everyone can see his numbers, and I just I don鈥檛 understand why anyone would be willing to take on that type of contract, particularly at this moment in time. Even some of the teams who鈥檚 goaltending has faltered, I don鈥檛 know how you could then look at him and say, 鈥淥kay, well, this is a guy that鈥檚 going to come in and be the answer for us.鈥 How could you confidently answer that way? You don鈥檛 have to go back very far to have a period of time where a lot of people were really high on Tristan Jarry and his stature in the game. I think part of that has changed over a larger sample size, and I think the Pittsburgh Penguins are more or less stuck.鈥
Dom Luszczyszyn, The Athletic: 鈥淥n March 3,聽Elias Pettersson signed a monster extension that would pay him $11.6 million for the next eight seasons. Until that point, Pettersson had been electric for the聽Vancouver Canucks. In 62 games, he scored 29 goals and 75 points, a 38-goal and 99-point pace right in line with his work the prior season. Over the prior 142 games, he had been a proven 100-point scorer, one who had shown an innate ability to tilt the ice and own the scoreboard. He was a dominant force, one well deserving of making big bucks. From that moment forward, though, everything changed. In the 39 games since (playoffs included), Pettersson has just six goals and 23 points, an abysmal 13-goal and 48-point pace 鈥 an over 50 percent decline from his previous heights. He has looked less engaged, he鈥檚 shooting the puck significantly less (5.8 shots-per-60 compared to 8.1 pre-extension) and looks like a shade of his prior self. What happened? To Pettersson鈥檚 credit, the Canucks are actually posting better on-ice numbers now (60 percent of the goals, 56 percent of the expected goals) than they were before (58 percent, 50 percent). That鈥檚 mostly a defensive result, too, which is often under-looked. The Canucks went from allowing 2.69 expected goals against per 60 in Pettersson鈥檚 minutes (0.21 xG鈥檚 worse) to 2.19 since the extension (0.04 better).聽 That鈥檚 nice and all, but it鈥檚 clearly coming at way too significant a cost to Pettersson鈥檚 offensive output. The ends don鈥檛 justify the means if his goals-per-60 drops from 4 all the way to 2.55.鈥澛
Adam Proteau, The Hockey News: 鈥淚t isn鈥檛 just (Paul) Maurice鈥檚 longevity that makes him an all-time coaching great 鈥 although it鈥檚 definitely a contributing factor. The 57-year-old has been coaching in the NHL since November 1995 鈥 an eternity in the coaching business. Maurice also sits fourth among all NHL coaches in聽regular season wins, with 873. He鈥檚 not likely to catch living legend Scotty Bowman (1,244 wins), but he is likely to beat Barry Trotz (914) and Joel Quenneville (969) by the time his career is through. But what makes Maurice particularly special is his persona and his ability to motivate players without stepping on their necks the way some harsher coaches are wont to do. (We鈥檒l let you guess who we鈥檙e talking about here.)聽Maurice isn鈥檛 doing things because his ego dictates and demands what his players should do. Indeed, he was a rare breed in that he stepped away from a perfectly good team as he did as the Winnipeg Jets coach in December 2021. He fell on his own sword in that particular case, believing he鈥檇 done all he could to turn the Jets into a bona fide Cup front-runner. You鈥檒l find few coaches willing to give up job security because they鈥檝e hit a crossroads with their team, but that鈥檚 exactly what happened with Maurice in Winnipeg. That selflessness is part of the reason Panthers GM Bill Zito hired Maurice in 2022. Zito was also at a turning point with his team, but he reached out to Maurice because he knew Maurice (a) knew his Xs-and-Os, (b) was always able to adapt to the modern type of player and (c) was still hungry to win it all. Maurice turned out to be a perfect fit in Florida, and the Panthers rewarded his faith in them by delivering his first of what could turn out to be multiple Cups.鈥
MEGAPHONE
鈥淭his is the start you want, right? We鈥檙e probably not going to go 81-1, but you want to ride the waves as long as you can. It鈥檚 not perfect. 鈥 None of the games were perfect, but to find a way to win the games, that鈥檚 what the top teams do, and we want to get there. It鈥檚 a long season, there鈥檚 a lot to do, but these points are just as valuable as the points in March.鈥
Washington Capitals forward Pierre-Luc Dubois, on his team鈥檚 fast start.