ST. LOUIS — When it comes to trying to sneak into the NHL playoffs, the St. Louis Blues have made it interesting the past few seasons.
In 2024-25, the Blues were eight points out of a postseason spot when they returned from the 4 Nations Face-Off break. They went 19-4-3 the rest of the way to grab the second wild-card spot.
This season, they were 14 points out of a spot when they returned from the Olympic break. Since then, they are 10-2-2, including a thrilling 2-1 overtime victory over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday, capped by a Dylan Holloway backhander goal with just three seconds left in overtime.
“I think we’re all digging in for each other, just having fun too,” Holloway said. “That’s a big thing. The more fun you have, the better the product, the more the team gels. We’re trying to relish that and push as hard as we can.”
Is this happening again? And if so, how?
The Blues won Thursday without Robert Thomas, who is day-to-day with an upper-body injury stemming from a body slam by the Washington Capitals’ Pierre-Luc DuBois earlier in the week.
No problem, 20-year-old center Dalibor Dvorsky stepped in against San Jose’s top line featuring young superstar Macklin Celebrini, scored a goal, and was 11-8 on faceoffs.
“He did a great job,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “He owned the middle of the ice. When you’re a centerman, you’ve got to own the middle of the ice. He scored in the middle of the ice, and he made some good defensive plays with his stick below the goal line in the middle of the ice. So he did a lot of good things.”
Not only that, but Jimmy Snuggerud, 21, has six goals and 13 points in his past 10 games. Defenseman Logan Mailloux, 22, has logged 20-plus minutes in each of his past 13 games and is a plus-5. Otto Stenberg, 2o, was recalled and now he’s dropping the gloves. Defenseman Theo Lindstein, 21, has played eight NHL games and is a plus-2.
Make no mistake, the Blues’ success has a lot to do with the goaltending, especially Joel Hofer. With Thursday’s win, he improved to 7-0-2 with a 1.29 goals-against average and .959 save percentage since the Olympic break.
But there’s enough good things happening across the ice that you can’t chalk it all up to the crease.
“I love the way our team is maturing,” Montgomery said. “We’re showing signs of becoming a good game-management team, which is going to give you a lot of wins, especially nights like (Thursday) where you don’t think you have your A game.”
Why now, though?
Montgomery begged for better game management all season and didn’t get it. And it’s hard to say that it was trading veterans Brayden Schenn and Justin Faulk because coming out of the Olympic break, the Blues were 3-1 and playing better before the trade deadline.
“Why it took this long or why we’re doing it now … (why) we didn’t do it in October and November? Sometimes it’s just the attitude,” Montgomery said. “I think we started this year thinking we were going to be good, and when it didn’t happen, we stopped working — like all of us. I include myself and everybody in it. We got frustrated instead of finding solutions. We’re finding solutions now.”
But can they find enough wins to sneak into the playoffs for the second straight season? Let’s take a look at the challenge ahead.
Western Conference wild-card race
If the Blues make the playoffs, it’ll have to happen like it did last season, via the wild card. The Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild are out of reach at the top of the Central Division.
The Utah Mammoth are currently holding down the No. 1 wild card in the West with 80 points and nine games remaining. The Nashville Predators are the No. 2 wild card, with 77 points and 10 games left.
Just going by the current points percentage, the team to catch is the Predators, who are on pace for 88 points. The Blues are at 71, so that would mean they need at least 17 more points for Montgomery’s club — a record of 8-2-1 or thereabouts in their last 11 games.
And even that might not do it.
That’s because after Utah and Nashville, there are still four other teams in front of the Blues in the standings.
Here’s a look at the standings with colleague Dom Luszczyszyn’s current point projection:
TeamPtsGRProj. PtsL10
80
9
91.2
3-5-2
77
10
86.0
6-3-1
76
10
89.4
4-2-4
74
11
83.5
3-6-1
72
10
83.9
4-4-2
71
12
83.7
2-6-2
71
11
81.2
7-1-2
Each of those teams has a different caliber of opponents down the stretch, though, so let’s factor in how difficult each team’s remaining schedule is. Per Tankathon, here is the combined points percentage (through Thursday) of each wild-card contender’s remaining opponents, and where that ranks in the league (with a higher ranking meaning a harder schedule):
TeamSOSRank
.516
28th
.575
15th
.489
32nd
.564
22nd
.568
19th
.519
27th
.582
9th
Of note, the Pacific Division teams listed here (the Los Angeles Kings, Seattle Kraken and San Jose Sharks) could also qualify for a playoff spot in their own division, where the threshold is 79 points for the third-place Vegas Golden Knights — who have lost five of six and have played one more game than the 77-point Predators — and 81 points for the second-place Edmonton Oilers.
So if one of the Pacific wild-card contenders gets hot down the stretch, it could have as good a chance of catching the Knights as the Predators.
The Blues don’t have that luxury, as only five Central teams can qualify. They need to catch either the Mammoth or the Predators.
Can they do it?
Let’s look at the remaining schedules for the Mammoth, Predators, Kings (just one point back of Nashville) and Blues, with educated guesses as to the outcomes, factoring in the strength of the opponent on the season and also how it’s playing right now. We’ll add Luszczyszyn’s points projections, too.
If one of the Kraken, Jets or Sharks gets hot down the stretch, it goes without saying that the Blues’ job gets even harder. But none of those three has more than four wins in its past 10 games, so we’ll focus on the most likely impediments.
Mammoth
The Mammoth could already have this spot wrapped up, but they’ve picked up just three wins in their past 10 games and one of those came in OT. For the season, though, they’ve played more like they belong. One of the barometers of a playoff team is a positive goal differential, and of the teams in the wild-card mix, their plus-19 is by far the best. They also have the fifth-easiest strength of remaining schedule, with four games against teams holding playoff spots and six against non-playoff teams. Here are my picks:
DateGamePickPts
March 28
at Kings
W 4-2
2
April 2
at Kraken
W 3-2
2
April 4
at Canucks
W 4-1
2
April 7
vs. Oilers
OTL 3-2
1
April 9
vs. Predators
W 4-2
2
April 11
vs. Hurricanes
L 3-2
0
April 12
at Flames
W 5-3
2
April 14
vs. Jets
W 3-1
2
April 16
vs. Blues
L 3-2
0
Record down the stretch: 6-2-1
My picks point total: 93
Luszczyszyn projections point total: 91.2
Predators
On Nov. 24, the Predators were 6-12-4 (.364 points percentage) and in last place in the league standings. Since then, the Preds are 28-17-5 (.610), which is the 11th-best points percentage. They were riding a five-game winning streak before a 4-2 loss on Thursday to the New Jersey Devils. The rest of their schedule won’t be easy, with games against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Wild, the Montreal Canadiens and the Anaheim Ducks — four teams in the top three of their respective divisions. My picks:
DateGamePickPts
March 28
vs. Canadiens
L 4-2
0
March 29
at Lightning
W 3-2
2
April 2
at Kings
W 3-2
2
April 4
at Sharks
W 4-1
2
April 6
at Kings
W 4-2
2
April 7
at Ducks
L 3-2
0
April 9
at Mammoth
L 4-2
0
April 11
vs. Wild
L 5-3
0
April 13
vs. Sharks
W 3-2
2
April 16
vs. Ducks
W 3-1
2
Record down the stretch: 6-4
My picks point total: 89
Luszczyszyn projections point total: 86.0
Kings
Of these teams, L.A. is struggling the most. The Kings have points in five of their past six games, but they are 2-1-3 in that stretch, and their wins came over the lowly New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks. They do also have the easiest strength of schedule of any team down the stretch (.489), though, including two more against last-place Vancouver. On the other hand, several of their games are against teams in the wild-card hunt: Utah, St. Louis, Nashville (2) and Seattle.
DateGamePickPts
March 28
vs. Mammoth
L 4-2
0
April 1
vs. Blues
OTL 3-2
1
April 2
vs. Predators
OTL 3-2
1
April 4
vs. Maple Leafs
W 3-1
2
April 6
vs. Predators
L 4-2
0
April 9
vs. Canucks
W 4-0
2
April 11
vs. Oilers
L 3-1
0
April 13
at Kraken
W 3-2
2
April 14
at Canucks
W 5-1
2
April 16
at Flames
W 3-2
2
Record down the stretch: 5-3-2
My picks point total: 88
Luszczyszyn projections point total: 89.4
Blues
The club has a 3 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Luszczyszyn. For the second wild-card slot, I have the Predators getting to 89 points and Luszczyszyn has the Kings getting to 89, so either way, that’s a good number for the Blues to target. It’s worth noting that the Blues have more regulation wins (26) than the Kings (19) or Predators (25), which is the first playoff tiebreaker.
To get to 89 points means getting 18 points in the final 11 games, which would take a record of 8-1-2, 9-2-0 — or better. That’s a steep challenge. Can they do it? My picks:
DateGamePickPts
March 28
vs. Maple Leafs
W 4-2
2
March 30
at Sharks
W 3-1
2
April 1
at Kings
W 3-2
2
April 3
at Ducks
L 3-1
0
April 5
at Avalanche
L 5-1
0
April 7
vs. Avalanche
OTL 3-2
1
April 9
vs. Jets
W 3-2
2
April 11
at Blackhawks
W 5-1
2
April 13
vs. Wild
L 4-2
0
April 14
vs. Penguins
OTL 4-3
1
April 16
at Mammoth
W 3-2
2
Record down the stretch: 6-3-2
My picks point total: 85
Luszczyszyn projections point total: 81.2
Conclusion
There is a path to chasing down the Kings and Predators for the second wild card, but it involves a near-perfect finish, plus neither of those teams (or the other teams in the hunt) getting hot.
A 6-3-2 finish wouldn’t be enough. But for the second straight season, the Blues would have made it interesting — a lot more than anyone expected months ago.