The St. Louis Blues are a mere five games into their young 2023-24 season and already there’s plenty of criticism, frustration, and opinions being formed around the club that has a 2-2-1 record. With barely an opportunity to get their legs under them, here’s a look at three of the biggest overreactions and predictions for the team’s season.
The Blues’ 5v5 Play Will Be Among Worst in the League
Let’s start this off with a bang as the Blues 5v5 play has, at times, looked downright dreadful. Through the first five games of the season, the team has been outshot 141-93 and has an abysmal 39.03% Corsi For (CF%) rating through 246:48 of 5v5 play. St. Louis is not generating enough sustained offensive zone pressure oftentimes getting one shot off before losing possession, and being forced to regroup. The Blues are doing the work along the walls, grinding pucks out and being hard to play against, but they’re not getting enough out of players to spark the offensive surge they desperately need.
Their 4-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets emphasized their troubling 5v5 play as the Jets registered a 62.82 CF% at even-strength while outshooting the Blues 25-16. They will need to find the right line combinations and tactics if they intend to work their way up.
Blues Are Foolish to Not Play Scott Perunovich
It’s no mystery that the Blues’ defensive core is overcrowded. With eight defensemen on the club’s current roster and normally only six that are rostered on a nightly basis, defenseman Scott Perunovich is the odd man out right now. Before the start of the season, Blues general manager Doug Armstong reiterated that the offensive-minded Perunovich has to help out on the offensive side of the puck, but also be competent in his own end as well.
The time will come when Perunovich will be inserted into the Blues’ lineup and have the opportunity to show what he can do. For the time being, the 25-year-old has only played 26 career NHL games. His growth and defensive play must continue to grow to beat out others currently in the lineup on a nightly basis. He has proven that he can be a reliable player in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Springfield Thunderbirds but now must show that he can elevate his game once more in the NHL.
Jordan Kyrou Won’t Crack 30 Goals
Let’s get this one nipped in the bud and go on the record to say that Jordan Kyrou is not regressing. The season is only five games young with 77 left to go. That’s a minimum of 4,620 minutes left to play if you don’t factor in overtime. Though Kyrou has not scored at a video game pace that fans may want to see, he is performing at a higher rate than he was a year ago through the same number of games.
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At this time, the growth and development of the young forward goes beyond shot and goal-scoring abilities. Following the 2022-23 season, Blues head coach Craig Berube stated the team’s desire to see their leading scorer come into the new year a better, well-rounded forward that played a more responsible defensive game.
“The guy’s got talent, tons of talent,” Berube said. “The way he skates, from a checking side of things, he can do it because he can skate. All you’ve got to do is put the work in, and he wants to do that. It’s a mindset, and I keep going back to that. He’s never had to really do that, but he has to do it now” (from ‘Jordan Kyrou and the Blues both want more, and it may take some ‘sacrifice’ from him offensively,’ St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 18, 2023).
| 2022-23 Season | 2023-24 Season | |
| Goals | 1 | 1 |
| Assists | 0 | 2 |
| Points | 1 | 3 |
| Shots on Goal | 16 | 17 |
| Shooting % | 6.3 | 5.9 |
| Time on Ice | 96:03 | 97:11 |
Comparing the 25-year-old’s first five games of the 2023-24 season to 2022-23, he is two points ahead of his 37-goal, 73-point breakout season a year ago. Fans’ expectations may have inflated a little thanks to the breakout year and have come to expect a lot more and, at this point, expectations may be getting a little out of hand. Though the fan base wants nothing but the best for their favorite players, the anticipation for Kyrou to raise his goal total to among the top players across the NHL needs to be tempered. It’s still likely that he leads the team in goals scored by the end of the season and flirts with a 40-goal campaign.
The Blues will look to right the ship and get another win in the books as they head into Calgary for their second of a three-game road trip on Thursday, Oct. 26. Time will tell if the cries of the fans are right, or if they were simply overreactions to some early-season blunders.