The St. Louis Blues are through two games this season and the reactions from each can be both positive or negative. As it currently stands, the Blues have been solid through two games, but there’s a lot of hockey left to be played this season.
In this edition of Blues Weekly, I’ll discuss the Blues start to the season, a prominent player with an injury, news on an important prospect, and a bit more.
Blues Start Season 1-0-1 in Shootouts
The Blues’ defense and goaltending have been solid through two games, allowing just three goals overall. Of course, one of those three goals was the shootout goal awarded to the Dallas Stars in their 2-1 shootout win over the Blues. More than their defensive unit playing well is the brilliance of Jordan Binnington through these two games. In two games, Binnington has a save percentage (SV%) of .969 and a goals-against average (GAA) of 0.92. It’s a small sample size, but it’s been encouraging to see.
Related: Blues’ Jordan Binnington off to a Great Start
One concern from the Blues’ first two games has been their offense. They’ve scored just three goals overall and one of those goals is counted from their shootout win over the Seattle Kraken. Only one forward has scored a goal this season and that’s Jordan Kyrou. The forward group is supposed to be the most reliable part of this group, but that hasn’t been the case so far, at least offensively. The Blues power play is 0-for-7 this season and it’s been ugly. They deserve more time to figure it out, but it could be time to get Scott Perunovich in the mix soon.
Buchnevich Injury Hurts Blues Early
Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich went down early in their win over the Kraken after taking a hit from defenseman Jamie Oleksiak. Untimely injuries have become a theme during Buchnevich’s time with the Blues, but he’s still surpassed 60-plus games in the past two seasons. It hasn’t affected his production to this point, but he was not good in the first two games of this season.
With Buchnevich out, it appears that head coach Craig Berube is promoting forward Brandon Saad to the top line with Kyrou and Robert Thomas. Despite the slow start offensively for Buchnevich, he’s still a valuable player in the lineup when healthy. The Blues appear lucky that Buchnevich will only be out for one to two weeks, according to Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic. This injury also forces Berube to make line changes, and that could spark the struggling offense. While Buchnevich being out will hurt the Blues in the short term, it could be a good thing in the long term if the forward group finds some momentum.
Blues Prospect Dvorský Coming to North America
Blues 2023 first-round pick Dalibor Dvorský is coming to North America. After 10 games in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) with Oskarshamn IK, Dvorský is leaving Sweden. It was not going well for him in Sweden with zero points in 10 games and a plus/minus of minus-6. It hasn’t gone well for Oskarshamn IK either as they are 2-8-0 to start the season.
It’s important to note that the Sudbury Wolves of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) own his Canadian Hockey League (CHL) rights. It’s unclear if Dvorský will play for Sudbury or not since they already have two import prospects on their roster. The CHL rules state that teams can only have two import prospects on their roster at a time, so Sudbury would have to drop the rights to one of their import prospects to allow Dvorský to play for them.
Another option for him could be to play in the American Hockey League (AHL) for the Blues affiliate Springfield Thunderbirds. This would allow him to grow with other top Blues prospects and continue playing against older players, which is somewhat similar to his competition in Sweden. Overall, there is no reason to be concerned about Dvorský’s departure from the SHL. His move to North America will be good for his development over the next few years.
Blues’ Week Ahead
- Thursday: vs. Arizona Coyotes (1-2-0, 2 points), 7 PM
- Saturday: vs. Pittsburgh Penguins (2-1-0, 4 points), 7 PM
The Blues have two games this week with both being at the Enterprise Center. They’ll face the rebuilding Arizona Coyotes and the Pittsburgh Penguins, who are off to a quality start. I think goaltender Joel Hofer will play sometime soon, but it would be surprising if Binnington doesn’t start both of these games. It’ll be interesting to see if the Blues can avoid going to a shootout for the third time in a row when the puck drops against the Coyotes.
