ST. LOUIS — Jim Montgomery called it back on Dec. 20.
The St. Louis Blues coach insisted after a 2-1 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers that his team was playing well and goals would eventually come for the offense-starved team.
Since then, the Blues are 4-1 and the “only game we’ve lost is a game we outshot the other team 37-16,” Montgomery said, referring to a 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Dec. 29.
So what’s been happening to get the club in the “W” column more often lately?
It wouldn’t be overly skeptical to say the schedule has benefited the Blues:
- 4-0 win over Detroit, which then fired its coach.
- 7-4 win over Nashville, which may be the most underachieving team in the NHL.
- 6-2 win over Chicago, which dropped its fifth straight game.
- 4-0 win over Ottawa, which is dealing with illness in the dressing room and was playing on the second night of a back-to-back set.
But all NHL teams go through stretches of opponents like that, and you still have to win the games. Furthermore, there have been some good trends developing, even going back beyond the last five games.
The Force is strong with this one. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/cnrjL3gBxc
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) January 4, 2025
The Blues had a difficult assignment against Ottawa on Friday, after returning from the Winter Classic in Chicago on Tuesday. They took Wednesday off and had practice Thursday before facing the Senators.
“Guys were a little wore down from those highs at the Winter Classic,” Blues defenseman Ryan Suter said.
“Monty said, ‘Let’s focus on the game,’” Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich said.
Not only were they focused, they were nearly flawless in one area — game management — that had been an issue this season.
“I just liked how professional and mature we were about our game,” Montgomery said. “As a coach, when you’re watching your team grow, you see parts of their game mature, where you’re not talking to them on the bench about the right way to play. They’re doing it. That’s what I liked.
“I don’t think we were at the top of our game tonight — how fast we played, pace. I don’t think we played as well as we did in the Winter Classic, but we played mature. Our game management was high end.”
The improved game management, which begins on the back end, has led to more offense.
In mid-December, the Blues went a stretch of five games in which they scored just one goal in four of them. Since then, in their last five games, they’ve gotten 23 goals from 12 players.
“Well, to me, I saw it coming,” Montgomery said. “I remember after the Tampa and Florida games, I said, ‘That was our best offensive game five-on-five in a while, and we’ve just got to keep playing the right way.’
“We’re playing harder. We’re making the good decisions. When we don’t have time and space to make a play, we’re predictable to each other and it’s allowing us to gain more O-zone time and more scoring chances.”
In those five games, Dylan Holloway leads the way with four goals, including a hat trick against Detroit. He’s followed by Brandon Saad, who had a hat trick Friday, and Cam Fowler (three each); Brayden Schenn, Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou and Alexandre Texier (two); and Zack Bolduc, Justin Faulk, Philip Broberg, Colton Parayko and Nathan Walker (one).
“I think the whole Florida trip, we played good, solid games, don’t give up much defensively,” Buchnevich said. “We got chances, but lots of guys just not scoring a lot this year. But at some point it’s got to get through, guys start scoring, and we’re winning games. It gives you more confidence in the locker room.”
The Blues have been building defensively for more than a month, Montgomery says, and the addition of Fowler further solidified that.
In 22 games under former coach Drew Bannister, they were allowing 2.89 goals against per 60 minutes at five-on-five, which was the sixth most in the NHL, according to Natural Stat Trick. In 18 games under Montgomery, they’ve allowed 1.83 goals/60 at five-on-five, which is No. 1, the fewest in the league.
“It’s simple plays with the puck, but I think, for me, ever since we went on that road trip that started in Winnipeg, we’ve been really committed defensively,” Montgomery said. “You play good defense, you get the puck more, and now our offensive game is built from there.
“That’s the area that needed the most improvement — our tracking and D-zone — and credit to the players, they’ve dug in and they’re executing at a high level. I thought that would be the hardest sell, but it wasn’t. It was the easiest.”
“We got clarity on the defensive side, what (we’re) supposed to do at center, what’s supposed to do on wings,” Buchnevich said. “When everybody know what to do, it’s easy to play, easy to read from each other, and I think this help us a lot.”
“I think everyone is on the same page,” Suter said. “Guys are playing the right way. We’ve understood that the better you defend, the more offense you’re going to get and the less time you spend in our end. We’ve been good at limiting those times (when defenses get hemmed in), and if they do happen, we keep everyone to the outside and live to fight another day.”
And now the Blues look like a team who could potentially be fighting for a playoff spot. They have 42 points this season, and while other teams around them in the Western Conference standings have games in hand on them, they’re just two points behind the Vancouver Canucks for the second wild-card spot.
But to stay in the race, the club has to find a way to climb several games above .500, and to do that will take more wins at home.
When they face the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, it will be their seventh opportunity this season to win three consecutive games, and they are 0-5-1 in the first six chances. Before a two-week break in February, they have 16 games remaining against teams with an average points percentage of .575, and eight of those 16 games are against teams currently holding a playoff spot.
Ideally, their schedule would be a benefit in that 10 of the 16 games are at Enterprise Center, but even with Friday’s win over the Senators, they are just 8-9-1 at home this season (3-3-1 under Montgomery).
The coach says he isn’t going to focus on the big picture, though he does understand it.
“I just like focusing on the moment,” Montgomery said. “I do tell them about the urgency we need to play consistently to make a push for the playoffs. We’ve just got to continue to build on what we’ve done since Christmas.
“For our group right now, we have to start pushing. We have a lot of games here at home in January and February. If we want to make a run at the playoffs, our consistency and belief in our identity has to start showing game in and game out.”
(Photo of Brandon Saad completing his hat trick: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
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