The regrets were laid bare for all to see last week.
As the Blues cleaned out their stalls and packed up for the summer, the ifs and buts were in season. The laments over the three losses to San Jose were fresh. The guilt of losses to Columbus and Chicago still lingered. ºüÀêÊÓƵ wondered what its season would have been like without those results.
“I think (why) we feel good about our team is we played with the top teams, we beat the top teams all year long,†Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. “I think when we played teams below us in the standings, we weren’t able to find the points or win the hockey games. Ultimately, that bit us in the butt at the end of the year. Probably a huge reason why we’re not in the playoffs right now.â€
Pavel Buchnevich: “I feel like the last couple months, we show how if we play as a group and dig into the system, don’t make too many turnovers, bad turnovers, and we can play against anybody. Again, I say disappointing season because we lost to Columbus, San Jose, Chicago, those types of games. That’s like 16, 18 points. That’s why we’re here.â€
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It’s undeniable that the timing of the last two losses to San Jose hurt the Blues the most. But overall, across the entire season? Well, it wasn’t the performance against the league’s worst that caused the Blues to miss the playoffs.
The Blues were actually 26-13-1 against teams that missed the playoffs, a .663 points percentage that was the 13th-best in the league and second-best among teams that didn’t qualify for the postseason. Detroit was the only non-playoff team with a better record vs. teams that already started summer.
Meanwhile, the Blues were 17-20-5 against playoff teams, a .464 points percentage that was 21st in the league.
“I was extremely proud of the way the guys played against the top teams,†Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “We have to grow and learn why we can play at a certain level against a certain group of players and organization and team, and what we have to do to prepare and execute better against a team that we don’t maybe have that fear factor in. I’m hoping those are learning things that we’re going to pick up.â€
OK, but they still struggled against the absolute worst of the worst teams, right? Well, no.
Against the bottom third of the league (the worst 11 teams that will have an opportunity to draft first overall), the Blues were ... elite. Wait, what? They were 21-8-1 (.717) against those teams, a mark that was 10th-best in the league and the tops among non-playoff teams.
They were better against the dregs than seven teams that made the playoffs. In fact, the Blues were a perfect 15-0-0 against Anaheim, Buffalo, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa and Seattle. That seems to get lost in the discourse about three games vs. the Sharks and two games vs. the Blue Jackets and one game vs. the Blackhawks.
With better results in those six head-shaking games (they went 0-5-1), the Blues are able to close the six-point gap between them and the second wild-card spot earned by Vegas. The math checks out.
But say the Blues completely swept those games and turned all six into wins. In that scenario, ºüÀêÊÓƵ has 11 more points and is easily in the postseason. It would also have meant the Blues went a preposterous 27-3-0 against the bottom third of the league, a .900 points percentage that would have been the best in the league.
Even say ºüÀêÊÓƵ split those games and got six points. It would have meant a 24-6-0 record and an .800 points percentage that ranked seventh in the league behind the Hurricanes, Rangers, Stars, Panthers, Oilers and Canucks. That’s lofty company to ask the Blues to keep, and it may be somewhat unrealistic to think that ºüÀêÊÓƵ belongs among the Stanley Cup contenders.
“You can always look back on things like that,†Blues forward Robert Thomas said. “Obviously frustrating. I feel like that can make a difference. There’s many games like that throughout the year that you feel like you should have won or you need to win. You can also look at some of the teams we beat consistently that are at the top of the league. That kind of goes both ways. Obviously, there’s lots of games throughout the year you wish you could get another crack at.â€
Individual games vs. bottom teams hurt. But their performance overall vs. those aiming for the top pick in the next NHL draft (those teams said to be “slackin’ for Macklin†Celebrini) very clearly helped the bottom line.
Likewise, individual games vs. top teams — Dallas, Boston, Edmonton, Vancouver —gained confidence. But overall, the Blues played worse against playoff teams than the Flyers, Flames, Sabres and Penguins.
Perhaps what was more troublesome was the team’s record vs. the three teams directly above them in the Central Division standings.
They were 0-3-0 vs. Nashville, including a mid-February game that changed the fortunes of both teams. They were 1-3-0 vs. Colorado, even if the play itself didn’t match the results. They were 0-3-0 vs. Winnipeg and outscored by seven goals.
Flip some of those four-point games? Well, now the season looks a lot different.
“We know we have a good team in this locker room, and we know we’re capable of more than what we’re at right now,†Blues forward Jake Neighbours said. “We showed that playing against top teams this year and getting points, getting wins against them. It’s more about winning the game you’re so-called supposed to win. We didn’t do that enough this year.â€