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It seems like the countdown is on now.

A few months ago, the questions surrounding Blues prospect Jimmy Snuggerud were about if and when he would leave the University of Minnesota. Now that he’s confirmed to return for his junior season in the fall, the questions about Snuggerud seem to be about what kind of player will arrive in ºüÀêÊÓƵ when his collegiate career ends in the spring.

Snuggerud said “there were a lot of factors� in his decision to remain a Golden Gopher instead of joining the Blues in April.

“The piece of not rushing it,� Snuggerud said during this week’s development camp. “The piece of wanting to win a national championship and the piece of wanting to be a leader in that program, I think, is what it truly came down to for me. It really wasn’t an easy decision. I would consider it the hardest decision of my life. But I factored in all of those things and I woke up one morning and that’s what my decision was, and I’m sticking with it.�

Snuggerud should be one of the best players in all of college hockey in 2024-25.

Last season, he had 21 goals in 39 games, a total that ranked 16th nationally. Of the players who scored more goals than Snuggerud, only three — Ryan Leonard at Boston College, Jack Devine in Denver and Alexander Campbell at Northeastern — are certainly returning to school. It could be a fourth if Macklin Celebrini chooses not to sign with the Sharks and instead go back to Boston University.

Minnesota also has one of the most consistent programs recently, going to the national championship game in 2023 and advancing to the regional final (last eight teams) in 2024. Snuggerud is hoping to help the school win its first national title since 2003.

“Yeah, that’s one of the biggest pieces,� Snuggerud said. “It’s an itch. When you don’t achieve something as a person that you want to achieve, it sits in my mind a lot, especially when I didn’t think I played to the best of my ability in the regional final and towards the second half of the season. I feel like I just wasn’t ready at that point and I can hopefully make an even better push next year. Hopefully our whole team can.�

The Blues made their push to sign Snuggerud when his season ended in April but ultimately understood and supported his decision to stay in college.

At development camp this week, Snuggerud met with general manager Doug Armstrong before players even got on the ice.

“He and I had a good chat the first day,� Armstrong said. “I told him what a massive part of our future he is, how I respected his decision, how he came about his decision and how we want him to maximize his year. I expect him to be here at the end of the season, and not only be here, I expect him to have a good enough season where he steps into our lineup at the end of the season.

“That’s his goal, that’s our goal. Everyone develops in a different area, but the goal is to get to the same place. His goal is to get here, and our goal is to support him, so when he’s here, he’s ready to take off.�

Blues assistant general manager Tim Taylor has helped oversee Snuggerud’s development and progress as a prospect and said this extra year should allow him to become more “mentally ready� to take on the NHL challenge.

“We support his decision, he’s going to turn pro and he’ll be a real good ºüÀêÊÓƵ Blue,â€� Taylor said. “We’re just there to help him and help him along and making sure that he’s getting bigger, getting stronger, doing the right things, understanding the details on the ice. Those are things that he’s going learn and go through.â€�

If Snuggerud develops the way both Blues brass and draft pundits expect him to, he should be a fixture in the top six for years to come in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. A right-handed winger with a heavy shot and a clapper of a one-timer, Snuggerud is one of the game’s premier young snipers.

Of course, goal-scoring has never been an issue for Snuggerud — especially when he was on college hockey’s best line with Logan Cooley and Matthew Knies as a freshman. But there are areas for improvement.

“I think skating and speed is one of the biggest pieces for me,� Snuggerud said. “I think I’ve improved it over the past two years, but it can get even better. Small-area stick-handling, just having better hands in tight areas. I think that college hockey has gotten to a point where it can help me improve and it’s such a high level of hockey. If I can be the best at that level that I can possibly be, and then bring it over to the next pro level.�

Taylor even noted Snuggerud has “an extra step this year in his stride.�

For the Blues to emerge from their transition towards a younger core, Snuggerud will have to be a main part of that, in addition to the other recent first-rounders who could fill out a starting lineup: left winger Zack Bolduc, center Dalibor Dvorsky, left-handed defenseman Theo Lindstein and right-handed defenseman Adam Jiricek.

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The objective was clear for the Blues in revamping their third and fourth lines.

They had a need for speed.

In trading for Alexandre Texier from Columbus and Mathieu Joseph from Ottawa, in addition to re-signing Kasperi Kapanen, the Blues remade their bottom six to be one that was based on above-average skaters on the wings. Of course, the Blues already employ the lanky, speedy and physical Alexey Toropchenko.

“We wanted to get to be a faster team,� Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “If you look at our third and fourth line, however you want to describe it, I don’t think we’ve ever had better skaters if you go with Joseph and Kappy, and you go Torp and Texier. We have really quick players down there now that are going to get in on the forecheck, that can kill penalties, that are going to relieve some of that necessity for our top-end players to kill, allow them to have more offensive-zone faceoffs.�

The Blues also traded for center Radek Faksa from Dallas, though Faksa’s strengths do not lie in his skating ability but rather his size, his ability to play to his size, win faceoffs and kill penalties. Faksa and Oskar Sundqvist could be the team’s third- and fourth-line centers when training camp opens in the fall.

“He’s a big man,� Armstrong said of Faksa. “He’s big, strong, he plays down low, he can roll around. I think with that and with Sunny, they’re not the fleetest of foot players, but having that speed on the wings is going to allow them to put the puck in the right areas and have those guys forecheck but also be very good defensively.�

But the Blues’ bottom six will have a different look thanks to the offseason additions.

According to NHL Edge player tracking data, Joseph was in the 79th percentile among forwards in top skating speed and the 84th percentile in bursts above 20 mph. Texier was in the 62nd percentile in top speed and the 73rd in speed bursts.

That’s in addition to Toropchenko (81st percentile in top speed, 97th in speed bursts) and Kapanen (93rd percentile in top speed, 86th in speed bursts), who were among the very best skaters in the NHL last season.

The new-look bottom six will replace players like Kevin Hayes (in the bottom quarter in both top speed and speed bursts) and Sammy Blais (below average in both categories).

“I think we’re a better team right now than we were at the end of last season, just with the three additions to that part of our lineup,� Armstrong said. “We’re faster. We’re more determined. We’re bigger. Obviously, we need the big dogs to be the big dogs. That’s the reality of it.�

The acquisitions now give the Blues 18 forwards competing for 14 spots on the roster and 12 spots in the lineup.

Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich, Jake Neighbours, Brayden Schenn and Brandon Saad are penciled into the ºüÀêÊÓƵ top six. Toropchenko, Faksa, Joseph, Texier and Sundqvist figure to be roster certainties.

Kapanen should have a leg up in the chase for the last spot in the lineup, though fringe players like Nathan Walker, Mackenzie MacEachern and Nikita Alexandrov will be trying to avoid being waived to the AHL.

Prospects Zack Bolduc, Zach Dean and Dalibor Dvorsky will be looking to earn a spot on the opening night roster for the first times in their careers but will have to push someone out of a spot above them.

“I expect those guys to push for a roster spot,� Armstrong said. “If Bolduc pushes into our six, that’s great because then all of a sudden, one of those guys I just mentioned goes into our seven, one of our seven goes to our bottom three, and one of the guys in our bottom three goes out. That’s good internal competition.

“I think Dean needs to come in, he needs to look those centericemen right in the eye and say, ‘I want your job.’ They have to look him in the eye and say, ‘You’re not having it.’ That’s really what you want. When there’s complacency that you don’t have an option as a coach or a manager, it’s easy (for players). I think there’s going to be competition.�

Of course, the Blues paid a price for that competition, attaching a second-round pick to Hayes in a deal that sent him to Pittsburgh. Armstrong said it was beneficial for both the Blues and Hayes to have a clean break and fell back on the number of recent high draft picks as reasoning for splitting with a future one.

“It’s the number of first- and second- and third-round picks we’ve had the last couple years,� Armstrong said. “It’s not ideal. I’m not minimizing it. It wasn’t a great day. I wasn’t excited about doing it. But when you look at in its totality of what’s best for the player, what’s best for the organization, we ripped the Band-Aid off. Bringing someone in and having an unhappy situation in training camp, either from the player or from the management, whatever it was, (isn’t good).�

In the past two years, the Blues have had 10 picks in the top three rounds of the draft. Only Chicago (13), Anaheim (12), Arizona/Utah (12) and Nashville (11) have had more.

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Doug Armstrong and the Blues didn’t want this to drag on another year.

In negotiating a new contract extension with forward Pavel Buchnevich, there was an expectation from both sides that “this wasn’t something that we were going to try and tackle next June,� Armstrong said when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday morning. The two sides wanted to find a solution this offseason, a year before Buchnevich’s current contract would expire.

That decision came down Tuesday, when Buchnevich signed a six-year extension worth $8 million annually that will keep him in ºüÀêÊÓƵ through the 2030-31 season. The extension begins in the 2025-26 season, as Buchnevich will play this upcoming season on his current contract with a $5.8 million cap hit.

Armstrong, special assistant to the GM Alexander Steen and Buchnevich’s agent Todd Diamond met before the draft at the combine in Buffalo. Then they met again in Las Vegas at the draft.

“Neither side was going to budge,� Armstrong said. “And then we talked again on the first, did the deal on the second. I’ll be honest with you, I budged.�

What did Armstrong budge on?

It became about the term for the Blues, who preferred a five-year term on the deal that will start when Buchnevich turns 30 years old. Buchnevich preferred longer, and the two settled at six years. The contract has a full no-trade clause in the first four years, and it becomes a 20-team no-trade list in 2029-30 and a 15-team no-trade list in 2030-31.

“It became over the term,� Armstrong said. “Our goal is to have the players maximize their prime. I think Buch can do this, but the actuary tables say not everyone does it. So you’re looking out moving forward, and I think that’s just the cost of doing business in today’s NHL.

“I think we’re back to where we were pre-pandemic that everyone believes that the cap will continue to grow, so any look of a slight overpayment won’t be an overpayment by the end of the deal. If the cap goes up $5 million a year, Buch is signed for seven, at the end, you’re looking at a $120 million cap, $115 million cap.�

The Blues were never at a four-year term, and Buchnevich “thought the sweet spot for him would have been eight, or seven,� Armstrong said.

In signing Buchnevich to a $8 million cap hit, the Blues did so at a number below what Jake Guentzel (seven years, $9 million average annual value) and Sam Reinhart (eight years, $8.625 million AAV) recently received. They also arrived at a number that keeps Buchnevich lower than both Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou’s $8.125 million cap hit.

“Todd Diamond is one of the representatives I work with that it’s a phone call or two, it’s not 15 or 20,� Armstrong said. “The goalposts start really close together. They don’t start a mile apart. I enjoy working with Todd because we get deals done or we don’t and we know very quickly.�

Buchnevich remains perhaps the most versatile player on the Blues roster, able to play both offensive and defensive roles, in addition to spending time both on the wing and at center.

“We asked him about (playing) left wing, center and his response was what you want to hear as someone that works in the hockey department is ‘I don’t really care. I just want to win,’� Armstrong said. “If we find different centermen, he can go back to the wing. He can start at center, we can find wingers.�

With the deal now signed, it’s now a question of whether Buchnevich can justify the six-year term that the two sides agreed to.

In the three seasons since the Blues acquired him from the Rangers, Buchnevich has been nearly a point-per-game player with 206 points in 216 games. Last season, he had 27 goals and 36 assists in 80 games.

What is it about Buchnevich’s game that Armstrong thinks will age gracefully?

“He’s a skater,� Armstrong said. “He’s got very good hockey sense. He knows his way around the ice. He doesn’t put himself (in bad spots). He plays in the hard areas without putting himself in bad positions. That’s an art form to be able to go and retrieve pucks and strip pucks and be the first in the corner without being on your butt in the corner after the event. I just think it’s his hockey sense and his commitment to being a pro makes you feel very comfortable that this will age as well as any of these contracts.�

When Buchnevich’s contract kicks in for the 2025-26 season, the Blues will have six players 30 or older that will be making at least $6 million: Buchnevich, Brayden Schenn, Colton Parayko, Torey Krug, Justin Faulk and Jordan Binnington.

Buchnevich’s deal will also bridge the transition for the Blues into a new, younger, crop of players. That, of course, means suffering through the last two postseason-less seasons, and the potential for a lean year or two ahead directly in his prime.

Before the Blues announced publicly that Steen would take over as GM in 2026, they told Diamond privately, and it was up to Armstrong and Steen to sell Buchnevich on their vision moving forward.

“We told him what we were going to try and do, that we had to stay committed to the process,� Armstrong said. “From a management perspective, you have to take the arrows through that process. It’s not all (good). I understand that at 6 o’clock on July 1st, it wasn’t all peaches and cream. But that’s what we committed to do.

“He understands that when we’re at that right point, we’re going to have the cap space and we’re going to have the assets to improve our team any way we want. That could be tomorrow, too. We’re not done trying to improve our team. But we weren’t going to do something that hindered him being part of a good team for the next seven years.�

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The Blues signed defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph to a one-year contract worth $950,000, the team announced on Wednesday morning. He is the younger brother of Mathieu Joseph, who the Blues traded for on Tuesday.

Pierre-Olivier played 52 games last season with the Penguins and would have been a restricted free agent this week, but he was not issued a qualifying offer and became an unrestricted free agent.

“Big, lanky player, kills plays, good skater,� Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “(The defense,) that’s a work in progress. If we come back with the same group, it’s the same group. With our right side being pretty well-connected with (Colton) Parayko, (Justin) Faulk and (Matthew) Kessel what we saw last year, we were focusing on the left side. If you look at the left-shot D that have signed, it wasn’t a huge market in that area.�

Joseph should serve as a depth option that can push Tyler Tucker for playing time in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Joseph is not waivers exempt, meaning he must be waived in order to be sent to the AHL.

The Joseph brothers have not been on the same team in the NHL before, but now will be in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.

“We started negotiating with P.O. a little earlier, so it was nice to make that second call and get the gang together,� Armstrong said.

Blues, GM Doug Armstrong go to six years for Pavel Buchnevich as 'the cost of doing business'

That decision came down Tuesday, when Buchnevich signed a six-year extension worth $8 million annually that will keep him in ºüÀêÊÓƵ through the 2030-31 season.

Assessing the Blues’ draft, trades, Buchnevich contract and development camp: Net Front Presence

Post-Dispatch Blues beat reporter Matthew DeFranks joined columnist Jeff Gordon to discuss all the Blues news from the last several days.

Gordo: Blues proceed sensibly to draft defensemen, lock in Buchnevich, add depth

Fans crave sizzle, but the Blues stayed sensible at this midpoint in their retooling.

Post-Dispatch Blues beat reporter Matthew DeFranks joined columnist Jeff Gordon to discuss all the Blues news from the last several days.

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Gordo: Blues proceed sensibly to draft defensemen, lock in Buchnevich, add depth

Fans crave sizzle, but the Blues stayed sensible at this midpoint in their retooling.

Blues trade for Radek Faksa, Mathieu Joseph to add forward depth

In two separate transactions, the Blues acquired center Radek Faksa from Dallas, and winger Mathieu Joseph and a 2025 third-round pick from Ottawa in exchange for future considerations.

Blues sign forward Pavel Buchnevich to 6-year contract extension

The deal begins with the 2025-26 season, and Buchnevich will play this coming season under his previous contract with a $5.8 million cap hit.

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The Blues stuck to their plan during their busy few days and accomplished what they set out to do.

Doug Armstrong and Co. addressed pressing needs at the NHL draft. They stepped back when the doors to free agency swung open Monday and let other franchises spend more than $1 billion.

Fans crave sizzle, but the Blues stayed sensible at this midpoint in their retooling. They fortified their third and fourth lines with pragmatic trades, added a young veteran defenseman and locked valuable forward Pavel Buchnevich into an extension for $48 million over six years.

All that made sense, given the team’s clearly stated goals.

Ah, but fans saw what teams that finished just above or behind the Blues last season are doing:

The Nashville Predators made a bold “all in� push for Stanley Cup contention by buying Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, among others. The Chicago Blackhawks expedited their rebuild by surrounding Connor Bedard with more scorers and veteran leadership.

The Seattle Kraken responded to their Year 2 flop by adding more offensive punch. Freed from the unfortunate Meruelo ownership in Phoenix, the Utah Hockey Club began spending big money to get into playoff contention.

Even the San Jose Sharks, who spent last season deliberately losing to improve their draft odds, made notable investments to upgrade.

This activity will give the Western Conference more competitive depth and create greater challenges for this Blues team.

This will test the patience of Blues management — and Blues fans — as the team continues to evolve.

The Blues’ overarching goal remains the same. The team aims to remain competitive in the near term while developing players who can lead the team back into contention in the longer term.

Jake Neighbours, Matt Kessel, Joel Hofer, Zack Bolduc, Zach Dean, Dalibor Dvorsky and Jimmy Snuggerud could all be part of the next deep playoff run.

By all accounts, the Blues added to that nucleus with a good draft. They selected defensemen with their first three picks to fill their organizational gap.

Adam Jiricek seemed destined to become a top 10 pick until he blew out his knee last season. That injury cost him a year of development time and attached some risk to his selection at 16th overall.

Second-round pick Colin Ralph has NHL size, but he will likely need three years of skill improvement at St. Cloud State to get ready for pro hockey.

The third defenseman, Lukas Fischer, was one of the youngest players in this draft class. He, too, could require extra time for physical maturation.

Long story short: None of these prospects will help any time soon. So there is still work to do on the blue line.

The Blues have long needed to infuse more youth into their defensive corps. Maybe free agent Pierre-Olivier Joseph, who just turned 25, could become that player.

The Penguins didn’t give him a qualifying offer after he played 52 games for them last season. Joseph was the 23rd overall pick in the 2017 NHL draft, so there might be something there.

The Blues freshened up their front lines with more substantial moves, subtracting lumbering forwards Kevin Hayes and Sammy Blais and acquiring Alexandre Texier from Columbus, Mathieu Joseph from Ottawa and Radek Faksa from Dallas.

(And yes, Mathieu is Pierre-Olivier’s brother. Nice twist!)

The new forwards can all kill penalties, and Texier, who turns 25 in September, offers some offensive upside as well.

There were much better scorers available in free agency, of course, but many were in the wrong demographic (29 or older) or they were commanding burdensome contracts.

Sean Monahan (five years, $5.5 million average), Chandler Stephenson (seven years, $6.25 million annually), Alex Wennberg (two years, $5 million per year) were just three examples.

Such deals didn’t make sense for the Blues. And they weren’t in position to strike some of the bargain deals signed Monday, such as Patrick Kane staying in Detroit (one year, $4 million plus $2.5 million in incentives), Matt Duchene staying in Dallas (one year, $3 million) and Jeff Skinner heading out to Edmonton (one year, $3 million).

All three of those guys were looking to win now. The Blues aren’t at that point, but they are trying to get there.

Overall, they could be better next season IF Jordan Kyrou plays to his ability for a full season, IF Buchnevich settles back into his point-per-game pace, IF a healthier Justin Faulk regains his previous form, IF the revamped supporting cast holds up and IF the team gets production from their assortment of developing youngsters.

Blues coach Drew Bannister was pleased to see Buchnevich get his well-deserved contract. He noted that the team’s forward lines gained more speed with Joseph and Texier.

“Now we can focus on the guys that are in between the four walls with us and get to work,� Bannister said, “(We can) believe in what we’re doing, continue to build on what we did towards the end of last year and our belief as a team moving forward in what we have to do to get where we want to be.�

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Photos: Day 2 of Blues development camp at Centene