St. Louis Blues 2025-26 NHL Season Preview | The Steve Dangle Podcast

St. Louis Blues 2025-26 NHL Season Preview | The Steve Dangle Podcast

The St. Louis Blues are younger than you think and I think they’re better than you think. Uh this is a surprisingly good team in transition, have been for a couple of years that surprised a lot of people and snuck into the playoffs last year despite but almost selling Braden Shen to the Leafs at the trade deadline which is kind of nuts. I don’t believe that was ever real. You don’t think that was real? No. No. The the Blues are uh they’re as noisy as the Calgary Flames. They’re just less than they’re less annoying about it. Okay, I got you. 96 points last year. Uh oddsmakers at Bet MGM has have them listed at 92 and a half. And by the way, if you take the over, uh you get better odds, 1.91. So, they’re really hedging that that St. Louis takes a step back this year. But I want to start Well, actually, I don’t want to start. I want to hear what you guys have to say. Would you go over or under? I hate how good they are at this. I’ll say over. Okay, Jesse, what’s the number? 92 and a half. I guess 92 and a half. Over. Our old radio station. Uh, okay. Over. I’m saying over as well. And I want to start with the forward group. Uh, Bushnavic, Robert Thomas. We know they’re great players, but the emergence of one man with a great last name, Jimmy Snugarude. That’s a great name. And he had two goals and two assists in that sevename series against the Winnipeg Jets. Big body, big shot, 21 years old. Fit right in. And then you add to that the fact that they got in they got Dylan Holloway who had a career year last year. What a loss not playing in the playoffs. He was injured and missed some time also in the regular season. And Broberg and Broberg outstand. Well, but I’m just talking forwards here. Uh but you know you’ve got Holloway Shen Kaiu and then Jake Neighbors if he’s healthy. Right now he’s uh you know listed as on the IR but he should be fine. Pew Sudter coming in from Vancouver for a couple of years who had a great year last year. Nick Buchstad and then uh a lot of Leaf fans love Torupchenko because they think he’d be a great fit here one day. Oscar Sunquist and fan favorite Nathan Walker who is a noted Alan Walsh client uh and signed an extension. They signed an extension. That’s right. That is a very surprisingly good forward group. It’s a nice group and it’s why they thought they could afford to lose Zack uh Bulduk, which is a move I still disagree with. Yeah. Uh, but I understand the logic. Okay. So, so you know, when you’re talking about this, I I think this is shaping up to be the toughest division in hockey. I really do. Uh, when you’re when you have this group going up against the Minnesota Wild, I think outside of Capri off, this might be a better group. Uh, if you pull the Capri off thing out of it, but the thing is is that Yeah. Um, they’re very comparable. the ABS, the Stars, and the Jets have extremely deep forward groups, guys. Are they going to be able to compete night in night out with some of those teams? Just Oh, 100%. Um, I mean, I I think sometimes you can project how a team is going to perform by how traumatic uh the end of their season was. Now, the Leafs are immune from this phenomenon, but the Blues were a second away from going to the second round. A second away from knocking off the President’s Trophy winners and going to the second round, and you blew it. Yeah. Um they’re a team of gamers. They’re they’re young, but they’re gamers, and they have one of the most fidgety GMs in all of hockey. Um they’re always underratedly exciting. They have an underrated roster. Um, and they’re never an easy out. Jesse, what do you think of that forward group? Yeah, I think like it can’t go unnoticed that this team was the best team in the National Hockey League from February 22nd onwards until the end of the regular season. No team in the league had as many points as they did. They had 41 points. They’re 194 and3ow to end the season. And I don’t think that was a fluke. And I think when you look at the forward group and you look up and down, you see a bunch of guys who can play a bunch of different roles. It’s not that anybody in particular is standing out and and taking the reigns in terms of how their play style or driving each line. It’s just a bunch of guys who are interchangeable and everybody who can affect the ice on both ends and score a couple goals. My question for you, they’re really deep. They that is a hell of a run and we’ll talk about part of that run which was their goalender after the four nations face off just in a second here. So let’s leave that out of it. So ridiculous. The one thing I worry about with St. Louis is the same thing, you know, looking back to Nashville two seasons ago that was not repeatable, which is a run like that. You can’t expect a run like that. And so they’d have to be much better on average throughout the year. I don’t see that. I’m not saying they can’t, but I that is a major factor in this. And that helped that pushed them down my rankings. It took that run to get into the playoffs, right? So, it’s a great point because that means up until from October till February 22nd in the four nationsish area that they weren’t playing hockey and they needed this best team in the National Hockey League run for 3 weeks to actually even just get into the eight seed. So, they needed Stanley Cup 2 though. It’s easier to replicate being the mediocre team that they were before the four nation faceoff than it is to replicate being the nearly unbeatable team that you were after. I don’t think it was a fluke in that like I think that talent is in there and what they showed. Obviously, they won’t go on a run like that. Uh I don’t think consistently throughout the year, but I think there’s enough quality where their flow floor isn’t as low as it was from October to February. So, let’s then talk about the goalending. We’ll skip defense for now. Uh the a major reason for that run was the play of Jordan Biddington. He had a renaissance year, but it wasn’t great going into Four Nations. You had a lot of doubters. By the way, chief among them even up to the championship game. I was like, “Huh?” Buru chief was among the detractors. No, I think Veru probably liked him. Uh former coach, I I I was like even going up to that game, I’m like, why are they starting this guy? I don’t understand. Like I And he came back from that Four Nations victory and was on fire. Like ate every Mario star that you could eat. Um he’s one of the best goalies in the league. And they’ve also got Joel Hoffer who’s 25 backing him up. Uh-huh. Really good. Another like underrated goalie. If Jordan is locked in, Jordan Bennington and Hoffer’s good. That’s a good That’s one of the better goalending tandemss out there. But I think what we’re discovering what we’re discovering about the Blues is they’re a good team with a lot of ifs, right? Like there’s a there’s if everything goes right, which it almost never does, then we should be great. then you’re one of the best teams in the world. But like what are the odds again? Like I’m not trying to disrespect them. Like what is the point pace of going what was it? 193 and no 194 and three. 194 and three. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, most teams don’t play at like 140 point pace. That’s a uh 788 points percentage. Like that’s Yeah. Wow. 788. I think they’re a good team. And yeah, at their best they’re absolutely humming, but you it’s so hard to maintain that for 82. Yeah, it is. Now, going to their defense, they made a really smart trade in picking up Cam Fowler last year. Uh people said he stinks and we were like, well, hang on a sec. Does he stink or does he play defense for the Ducks and it turned out he’s pretty good and he was spectacular on that run. Will we learn it the fourth time it happens? Let’s wait and see. Uh Colton Pereco is obviously, you know, a team Canada guy. He’s spectacular. Phil Broberg, I think was having a really good year until the injury. Uh Faulk is there. They’ve got Logan Mayu now because they traded Zack Bulldog for him. They’ve got Tucker. They’ve got uh Tory Krug is not ever going to play again, it looks like. So, I would say a bit thinner, but you need some of these guys to sort of emerge and be better, right? You you’ll need Broberg to be better than he was and you’ll need him to be healthy and you’ll need Logan Mayu to step in and actually be Logan Mayu. Yeah, this this is the thing with that trade is like they decided we need more future on D. Um we’re pretty set up front. Uh I think Bulld is a better forward than Mayu is a defenseman, but right now right shot defenseman. Sorry, but Mayu is a right shot defenseman. Yeah, like it shouldn’t even be controversial to say that. Bulldog has like an abundance of NHL experience. Mayu’s been like sort of a he’s he’s he’s never been a regular NHL player and he’s going to be tasked with doing that for the Blues and there’s no guarantee for any rookie defenseman that it goes great. Um Adam Urchek is also waiting in the wings, but he’s only 19. You don’t need to rush him. Jesse, what do you think about the defense for the St. Louis Blues? like the defense during that run, they they limited shots against and that was kind of their whole thing and and how they started playing better hockey. Obviously, the goals came, but like the defense was a large part of it cuz the Blues had never been a high shot team themselves, but during their stretch from the beginning of the season to four nations, they were allowing a bunch of shots on goal. So they they didn’t move, I don’t think, outside of the 20th teams in the league in terms of shots on goal, but they moved from the 20th sixth team in shots against to the top five, right? There was a complete defensive switch and maybe like the thing about thinking that it’s not repeatable, maybe they unlock something with that defensive structure that is repeatable. Maybe they’ve they’ve figured out a way for that core of six guys and the rest the team as a whole to play a solid type of defense that doesn’t allow a lot of shots on goal cuz they did it through that run and maybe they come into this season that through training camp and into the regular season with that same attitude and that same structure of play. I think uh one thing that we’re understating is Jim Montgomery essentially does not lose regular season games. No, he’s amazing. So that bodess well for them. Yeah. And and bringing him in midway through the season sort of dovetailed perfectly with their turnaround. And what happened midway through the season. They figured it out. They got good. Yeah. Figured it out. Like maybe it’s just they brought in a new coach who got them playing better with with their defense and that’s what they are from now on. This division is so hard to rank because there are five. As you said in one of the other Jesse preview videos, Jesse, there’s like a top three and then there’s uh and then there’s the middle and there’s the two obvious bad teams. It’s this one’s hard. Are they better than the Wild? Are they worse than the Wild? I have no idea. Where do you have the St. Louis Blues ranked in the Western Central D? Uh I think they’re the fifth place team that nobody wants to play. So, you think that they’re maybe the second wild card team and that will not be a fun out for anybody that has to play. I It’s too good of a division to have them higher. Um, and because they’re so young, if the tie goes to the veteran fifth, but yeah, who the hell wants to play them? Jesse. Yeah, I ranked Nash or Nashville Minnesota fourth. So, St. Louis five. The other thing about them being a fringe playoff team is it allows them to stay in trade rumors for another full year. So, I’m sure you’re going to love that, Steve. Braden Shen, will your orony? Let’s see. All right. Hey, that is our preview. Not going to say where he is. Oh, I have them fifth as well. Okay, that means they’re going to win the division. Uh uh that is our season preview for the St. Louis Blues.

Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde, and Jesse Blake preview the upcoming season for the St. Louis Blues and predict where they will finish in the Central Division.

Watch all of the SDP’s season previews here:
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