ST. LOUIS — Well, give the St. Louis Blues credit: They lasted longer in the Western Conference wild-card race than many expected.
The Blues’ 5-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday, coupled with the Vegas Golden Knights’ 7-2 win over the Minnesota Wild, ended their chances of catching the Golden Knights for the second and final wild-card seat.
Vegas has 94 points with three games left to play, while the Blues have 89 points with two games to play, so the best they can do is 93 points. The Los Angeles Kings (95 points, third in the Pacific) and Nashville Predators (97 points, top wild card) are also out of reach.
So there will be no NHL playoffs in St. Louis for the second straight season, which marks only the fourth time in franchise history that’s happened.
The Blues missed the postseason in 1977-78 and ’78-79. Then they missed for three straight seasons in 2005-06, ’06-07 and ’07-08. The most recent time was ’09-10 and ’10-11.
In each of those seasons, the organization was rebuilding. This time, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong has said the team is only retooling. There are expected to be significant changes to the roster in the aftermath of another year without a trip to the playoffs, though.
Prior to the Blues’ first game of the regular season, Armstrong said that third place in the Central Division behind the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche could be an attainable goal for the club.
“I thought we were right in the game, we had a ton of chances… it’s a frustrating loss.”
Hear from Robert Thomas, Colton Parayko and Drew Bannister following tonight’s game. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/Xx63n0PrZ4
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) April 13, 2024
As it turned out, the Winnipeg Jets were more formidable than he and others expected and the Predators’ rebuild sped up faster than expected with former Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly at the helm.
In fact, the Blues were 0-3 against Nashville this season, including a 5-2 loss to the Predators at Enterprise Center on Feb. 17. That was three weeks before the NHL trade deadline on March 8 and was the defeat that Armstrong would reference on the day of the deadline as the turning point in the season that led him to decide against adding any help to the roster.
When the Blues fell 4-0 to the New York Rangers on March 9, a day after the deadline passed, it looked like they’d be playing a lot of meaningless games down the stretch.
Instead, starting with a 5-1 win over the Boston Bruins on March 11, the Blues have gone 10-4-2 down the stretch, challenging Vegas and Los Angeles for the final wild-card spot right up until the final week of the season.
The Golden Knights are the defending champions and made major improvements at the trade deadline, so their securing the last spot isn’t a surprise, but it sure will make the Blues reflect on several winnable games they let get away from them this season, especially against the San Jose Sharks.
They went 0-2-1 against the league’s last-place team, including two losses during that 10-4-2 stretch: 4-0 on March 30 and 3-2 in OT on April 6. If not for those three debilitating losses and a few others against the league’s other bottom feeders — the Columbus Blue Jackets and Chicago Blackhawks — the Blues wouldn’t be eliminated and might even be in playoff position.
In the end, however, management was somewhat accepting of the team’s situation.
In the last stretch of games, the Blues suited up a young lineup, featuring Zack Bolduc, Zach Dean, Matthew Kessel and Tyler Tucker. On the surface, that signified they were more interested in gaining experience for their future players than making the postseason. But then they wound up getting a better performance out of those players, including three goals and 4 points in the last three games from Bolduc, than they have out of some of the veterans who were injured late in the season.
It would have been interesting if the Blues could’ve stayed alive just a bit longer, especially since they are a combined 4-0-1 against their final two opponents, the Seattle Kraken and Dallas. (Granted, Vegas would have had to flop at the end against bottom feeders Chicago and Anaheim.)
The regular-season finale against Dallas could have had some added intrigue, too, in terms of whether the Stars would suit up their top players. They are still within reach of the Presidents’ Trophy for most points in the regular season, and they could have some control over who they face in the first round of the playoffs.
But that’s all moot now. The Blues are getting set for another long offseason, one that should include a lot of player movement.
(Photo: Jeff Curry / USA Today)
