Gordo grades Blues defensem*n, goaltenders: Binnington, Hofer, Parayko stood out (2024)

On balance, the Blues’ defensive corps was slightly better this season than in 2022-23 thanks to Colton Parayko’s excellent campaign and the emergence of rookie Matthew Kessel as a viable stay-at-home defender. But the advancing age and remaining contract term of the veterans remain problematic.

The Blues remained in the playoff chase this season for one big reason: Their goaltending was great. Both Jordan Binnington and his first-year backup Joel Hofer had excellent campaigns. If the Blues keep this tandem intact next season, that team strength should keep them in the chase.

Colton Parayko

After he led the NHL with 218 blocked shots, averaged a career-high 23:53 of ice time, shouldered a 62 percent penalty-killing share and took 65.3 percent of his faceoff starts in the defensive zone, maybe more experts will admit his contract isn’t so terrible. His cap hit of $6.5 million ties him with teammates Justin Faulk and Torey Krug, among others, for 30^th-highest among defensem*n. No, Parayko doesn’t play on the power play (just 7.2 percent time share this season) but he fills the challenging shutdown role without having a true shutdown partner. That he scored 10 goals was a big plus too.

Grade: A

Nick Leddy

He spent the bulk of his career as a secondary offensive defenseman before being miscast into his shutdown role next to Parayko. His penalty-killing assignment increased from a 35.9 percent share last season to a 59.3 percent share this season. Leddy’s overall ice time increased from 21:07 to 22:22 per game and those were mostly tough minutes. He took a career-high 66.7 percent of his faceoff zone starts in the defensive zone. Leddy is not an elite defender – as his 32/38 takeaway/giveaway ratio suggests -- but heady play and his ability to skate the puck out of trouble helped him hold up OK.

Grade: A-minus

Matt Kessel

The Blues desperately needed another defenseman to emerge and take some difficult matchup minutes. That somebody turned out to be Kessel, who has exceeded expectations as a fifth-round pick making entry-level pay. He averaged 16:48 in ice time over 39 games, but 19:10 during the nine games in April as general manager Doug Armstrong sought a longer look at his younger players. No one aspect of his game stands out, but Kessel is a steady player who helped stabilize the unit very early in his career. He bounced back from a rough patch and a brief return to the AHL to finish the season well.

Grade: B-plus

Tyler Tucker

As Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard discovered, Tucker will absolutely play the body. And Tucker will back up his physicality by fighting when challenged. He is a willing combatant who could add some much-needed toughness to the Blues’ back end if he could improve his skating and agility. This team welcomes his big hits along the wall, but his inability to recover quickly and defend creates problems when he goes bowling for opponents.

Grade: C

Marco Scandella

Even with Robert Bortuzzo’s exit in a midseason trade, the veteran Scandella settled into a limited role during his 65 games. His average time on ice (just 12:28 per game) fell for the fourth straight season. His penalty-killing time share fell from 53.4 percent to 22.7. Scandella was a candidate to get traded ahead of the deadline to a playoff-bound team seeking defensive depth, but there wasn’t much of a market for him. That was telling. Now he and his $3.275 million cap hit will move along.

Grade: C-minus

Scott Perunovich

Well, the injury-plagued stayed healthy for the first time since turning pro. So there’s that. But Perunovich struggled at the defensive end and didn’t do enough offensively (no goals, 17 assists in 54 games) to cement his place in the team nucleus going forward. He produced just six power play points despite getting a 40.7 percent power-play time share. Perunovich is a gifted passer, but he must put more pucks on net to keep opponents honest. His lack of size will always make defending his zone challenging, so must use his feet, his stick and his play-reading ability to kill more plays.

Grade: D

Justin Faulk

Like Leddy, Faulk moved into more of an unfamiliar defensive role when he came to St. Louis. He did OK with that difficult transition until this season, when he suffered stark regression due in part to a high ankle sprain suffered in the midseason. His time on ice decreased from 23:23 per game to 21:58 and he took a step back in penalty-killing time share (43.6 percent to 34.5), power-play time share (47.5 percent to 35.6), shot attempts (352 to 264) and shots on goal (196 to 132). His shooting percentage plunged from 9.6 percent two years ago to 1.5 percent. His scoring rate dropped from 0.61 and 0.62 points per game the previous two years to 0.50. The Blues will need a bounce-back season from him when he regains his full mobility.

Grade: D

Torey Krug

After rejecting a trade to Philadelphia during the offseason, Krug managed to remain reasonably healthy for a change. He logged more ice time (21:58, up from 18:35) than last season and set career highs for blocked shots (111) and penalty-killing time share (27 percent). Unfortunately, his defensive play didn’t improve with the increased responsibility. He is at his best as a power-play quarterback, but he produced zero goals and just 13 assists with the man advantage. His three remaining contract years with a $6.5 million salary cap hit are budensome for a franchise looking to retool.

D-minus

Jordan Binnington

Binnington settled down and regained his standing as one of the NHL’s top goaltenders. He delivered marked improvement in his save percentage (.913, up from .894) and his goals-against average (2.84, down from 3.31) from last season. He ranked fifth in the league with 16.5 saves above average. His actual save percentage was 0.30 better than his expected save percentage. His .780 save percentage shot attempts ranked among the best among lead goaltenders. Binnington’s work ethic and consistency of approach allowed him to assume a greater leadership role as well.

Grade: A-plus

Joel Hofer

The easy-going Hofer settled in nicely as Binnington’s backup. Finishing 15-12-1 with a 2.65 GAA and a .913 save percentage. Like Binnington, he is an excellent and aggressive puckhandler who helped defeat the opponent’s forecheck and trigger offensive breakouts. In his 30 games he made 10.3 saves above expected. His actual GAA was 0.38 better than his expected GAA. He is a bigger goaltender than Binnington and he relieves more on sound positioning – but his end results are very similar.

Grade: A

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. St. Louis 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.”

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.”

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.”

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, St. Louis 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 St. Louis 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 St. Louis 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.”

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.”

The Blues ranked 25^th in the NHL in scoring this season, and their lack of firepower up front played a big role in that. There was more regression than progression this season among the forwards. The players who did well as stopgap additions last season flopped this time around.

Robert Thomas

He enjoyed the breakout the Blues hoped for while becoming one of the best all-around centers in the NHL. Thomas closed with three points and nine assists in his last seven games to finish with 26 goals and 60 assists. He played 20:58 per game, up 1:37 from the season before. He shouldered a 40.8 percent share of the penalty-killing load. He put his improved shot to work, firing 2.1 shots on goal per game – up from 1.5 the season before. His 326 shot attempts were a huge leap from 175 in 2022-23.

Grade: A

Jake Neighbours

Yes, even he was surprised that he emerged as a 27-goal scorer in his first full NHL season. His average ice time jumped from 12:26 last season to 15:42 in this campaign. Neighbours earned the net front role while commanding 2:12 per game on the power play. His shooting percentage improved from 11.3 last season to 18.6 this year with so many of his shots coming in tight. He carried a third-line draft projection into the NHL, but he proved he can fill a Top 6 role when placed in a suitable line combination.

Grade: A

Alexey Toropchenko

While the supporting cast forwards were disappointing overall, Toropchenko was the positive outlier. He used his speed to create opportunities off the rush. He used his size to convert around the net. Toropchenko scored 14 goals and landed 165 hits while playing 12:31 per game. His long reach and willingness to battle along the walls made him a penalty-killing asset as he handled a 23.4 percent load share.

Grade: A

Pavel Buchnevich

He enjoyed career highs in time on ice per game (19:49), power-play time share (61.5 percent) and shot attempts (390). But Buchnevich fought the puck for stretches of the season, resulting in a decline in shooting percentage (21.3 percent down to 13.0) and scoring rate (1.06 points per game down to 0.67). His sturdy play in all game situations should earn him a contract extension offer from Doug Armstrong, but his offensive regression combined with his advancing age (he just turned 29) could impact negotiations.

Grade: B

Brandon Saad

He got rolling in the latter stages of the season while scoring 13 goals and adding nine assists during his last 31 games. Saad finished with 26 goals despite seeing reductions in ice time (16:39 per game to 15:30) and power-play role (38.4 percent time share to 32.7 percent). He bounced up and down the top three forward lines while remaining a skate-and-shoot threat. While he tends to score in streaks, his overall play remains sound and predictable. He produced a 33/17 takeaway/giveaway ratio a plus-6 on-ice goal differential.

Grade: B

Nathan Walker

He added speed and energy to a team needing both during the stretch run. In 45 games he scored seven goals, earned six assists, blocked 35 shots and landed 95 hits while playing 10:49 per game. Walker filled in a bit at center and chipped in by winning 47.6 percent of his draws. He is one of the team’s few agitators and he can punch above his weight. His unique personality made him a positive fit into the team chemistry.

Grade: B

Zack Bolduc

Predictably, it took him a while to get up to NHL speed just as it took him time to adapt to playing against men in the AHL. He scored three goals and earned two assists in his last five games after producing just two goals and two assists in his first 19 with the Blues. Bolduc made strides with his play away from the puck, but he will need further improvement to earn a regular role with the team next season.

Grade: B

Brayden Schenn

Armstrong admits he put Schenn in a tough spot by making him a first-time captain on a team in transition. Schenn is a heart-and-soul player and the team’s early struggles — and subsequent coaching change — weighed heavily on him. That burden had an adverse impact on his play. Schenn finally got rolling late as the team came together; he had seven goals and eight assists in his last 16 games. Overall he suffered notable decline in scoring rate from last season, 0.79 points per game to 0.56, despite producing his highest shot total (170) since 2017-18. He missed the net on 34.4 percent of his unblocked shot attempts. Expect Year 2 of his captaincy to go much better.

Grade: B

Jordan Kyrou

He had two seasons: A poor one under Craig Berube and a strong one under Drew Bannister after Armstrong cashiered Chief. Kyrou started badly (four goals in 24 games) and finished on fire (six goals in his last eight games). While Bannister implored the Blues to have a shot mentality, Kyrou didn’t need to read that memo — he launched 506 shot attempts this season. But he had 141 shots blocked and 31.2 percent of his unblocked shots missed the net. His overall competitiveness and defensive detail improved as the season progressed, but his game still has room to grow.

Grade: B-minus

Oskar Sundqvist

Fortunately he agreed to his contract extension before suffering a serious knee injury that will sideline him into next season. Despite getting some power-play action in the net front role, Sundqvist produced just six goals and 15 assists in 71 games. His career-long struggles in the faceoff circle continued (41.9 percent), but he still shouldered a 33.2 percent share of the penalty-killing duties. With 62.9 percent of his faceoff zone starts coming in the defensive end and the Blues’ bottom six forwards struggling to score, his on-ice expected goals differential was minus-21.8.

Grade: C-plus

Sammy Blais

After coming back from the New York Rangers last season, Blais found his previous Blues form while scoring nine goals and earning 11 assists in 31 games. Alas, that success did not carry over to this season. Blais was as physical as usual, landing 194 hits in 53 games. But he didn’t do much else while scoring one goal and earning six assists in 9:43 per game. Blais finished with a minus-11 on-ice goal differential as part of the team’s insufficient supporting cast.

Grade: D

Kevin Hayes

Last season he had another solid offensive year in Philadelphia while scoring 18 goals and adding 36 assists. Armstrong took on the final three seasons of Hayes’ contract with the Flyers eating half of his $7.143 million salary cap hit. He proved to be no bargain while suffering declines in ice time (17:34 per game to 14:28), shots on goal (209 to 153), shot attempts (387 to 271) and power-play points (16 to 5). At least he won some faceoffs (57 percent) and contributed some puck possession. Hayes is popular with his teammates, but he needs to produce more than 29 points in 79 games to justify his cap hit.

Grade D-minus

Nikita Alexandrov

The Blues didn’t want to expose him to waivers by keeping him on the AHL shuttle. But he didn’t do much to earn Blues playing time this season after his 2022-23 breakout at Springfield of the AHL (19 goals, 19 assists in 41 games). So he mostly served as a practice player while pulling his NHL salary. He wasn’t tenacious enough to fill a checking role or skilled enough to play an offensive role. In 23 games he had no goals and two assists while playing just 8:32 per game.

Grade: F

Kasperi Kapanen

Last season he offered a solid third-line production (15 goals, 19 assists in 66 games) for the Penguins and Blues. He proved worthy of his waiver claim from Pittsburgh by producing 14 points in 23 games in St. Louis. But this season Kapanen became a waste of his $3.2 million salary cap hit while scoring just six goals and adding 16 assists in 73 games. He chipped in on the penalty kill (26.7 percent time share), but his 5-on-5 metrics were poor.

Grade: F

Jakub Vrana

This highly skilled winger had a solid offensive season with 16 goals and 20 assists ... for Springfield of the AHL. Vrana did little during his stints with the Blues (two goals, four assists in 21 games) this season. Last season he scored 10 goals and added four assists in 20 games after coming over from the Detroit Red Wings organization. He was worth the flyer the Blues took with the Red Wings retaining some of his salary. Now the Blues will be glad to get their share of his $5.25 million salary cap hit off the books.

Grade: F

Zach Dean

Under normal circ*mstances, Dean would not have received his first call-up this season. But Armstrong wanted to take inventory of his long-term assets while giving youngers player more NHL work late in the season. Dean was just starting to gain traction in the AHL when his premature promotion came. Overall he produced just nine goals and five assists in 49 AHL games and no points in nine Blues games. To earn his projected checking role at this level, Dean will need to play with more tenacity.

Grade: Incomplete

Jordan Binnington’s final memory of the 2023-24 season was the electrifying scene at American Airlines Center in Dallas as the Blues battled the Stars all the way to a shootout.

This was a thrilling playoff-caliber game against a playoff-bound opponent. Binnington played brilliantly in goal for the Blues, but the Stars ultimately prevailed.

Binnington carried the feeling from that night into an offseason that began much too soon. That Dallas vibe stuck with him after the Blues missed postseason play for the second straight year.

“Just how loud that rink was, how excited the fans were to cheer on their team, that’s something’s that’s earned,” Binnington recalled the day after the season ended. “We’re on our path back to earning that feeling.”

The Blues are constructing a new team nucleus around talented young forwards Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou and Jake Neighbours; cornerstone defenseman Colton Parayko; and the excellent goaltending of Binnington and rookie Joel Hofer.

On one hand, the long-term contracts and no-trade protections given to Stanley Cup-winning players make retooling the roster more difficult. There isn’t much salary cap flexibility.

On the other hand, those contracts have kept leadership structure in place. That should make rebuilding the team easier.

This season provided progress in that direction. With the help of the entrenched veterans, the Blues began rebuilding the collective commitment needed to succeed.

Staying in the playoff chase was good for business, but it was also essential for the proper development of the younger players.

“We showed that we can compete with the best, for sure, and hopefully that sends a message to evolve the team to make some decisions that are for the better and for us to be more competitive next year,” Binnington said after the loss in Dallas. “It’s unfortunate to not make the playoffs, but it’s a good final game and we have more. There are better days ahead.”

Binnington is one of the few key figures left from the magical 2019 Cup-winning team. Change was inevitable given the NHL’s salary cap system, but the turnover accelerated from year to year as the Blues failed to get back on a championship track.

Last season, general manager Doug Armstrong traded Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Ivan Barbashev and other veterans with expiring contracts to gain long-term assets. This season, he fired Cup-winning coach Craig Berube.

The team stalled out, but the retooling had to move forward. Drew Bannister came up from the American Hockey League to rally the players as interim coach. It remains to be seen if Bannister will lead the team forward or if Armstrong will choose someone else.

Either way, it will fall to holdovers Binnington, Thomas, Parayko and first-year team captain Brayden Schenn to set the example on the ice and lead the team bonding that occurs off the ice.

Player development will be critical for the Blues as they try to climb back into perennial contention. Armstrong must create some salary-cap space and exploit it with the right personnel moves, too.

But rebuilding the winning culture remains the biggest challenge of all — and that effort must come from within the group.

“Just growing as people and players and as a team,” Binnington said. “I think the biggest thing is growth as a team. Just coming together. We had a lot of big meetings and broke some barriers and talked about different things, and I think moving forward, that will be a strong suit for us.”

The Blues could have folded up this season. At various points, they nearly did. But each time, they regrouped. There was value in that.

Just look around the league and see how many rebuilding teams have not built the right culture no matter how much young talent they have accumulated.

The Buffalo Sabres are a prime example. So are the Ottawa Senators. So are the not-so-mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the poor Columbus Blue Jackets. There are plenty of rising stars on those teams, but year after year after years, those franchises fail to rise up.

Binnington knows what further progress will look like for the Blues. They need to take the successes of the season’s second half into their summer of individual work and their teamwork at training camp.

“Hopefully it’s carrying that with us, having a great offseason, taking steps, whether you’re a young guy, learning as much as you can this year and taking that forward,” he said. “If you’re a mid-20s guy, just try to take a step to be that veteran presence that we need and a competitive player day in and day out.”

Thomas took that step this season. So did Neighbours, Hofer and Alexey Toropchenko. Kyrou made strides. Matthew Kessel and Zack Bolduc began their maturation as well. Zach Dean, Dalibor Dvorsky and then Jimmy Snuggerud will be up next.

Maybe, just maybe, the Blues build a playoff-caliber team by next spring.

“It’s why we play, right? To be a competitor,” Binnington said. “You don’t play this game forever. You want to be in that action.”

Brayden Schenn was named Blues captain two days before the team started training camp.

And in the following three months, the Blues were inconsistent from game to game, period to period. They fired their coach. They traded the longest-tenured player on the roster. One of the team’s franchise players was booed at home. And there still were 50-plus games to go.

So it wasn’t quite the easiest start to Schenn’s time with the captaincy.

“A proud player and a Stanley Cup champion that’s asked to be the captain of a team that’s going through a transition, it’s difficult,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “Then you throw in a coaching change midseason. It’s not like I made this easy on him. I didn’t say, ‘Let’s name Schenner captain and see how hard I can make it on him.’ I’m not surprised that it ended up where there was a lot of turmoil that he had to deal with.”

Of course, Schenn also had his own game to worry about.

He finished the season with 20 goals and 26 assists, his lowest offensive output across an 82-game schedule since 2013-14, when he had 41 points as a 22-year-old with Philadelphia. It was a 19-point drop from last season, which trailed only Kevin Hayes (down 25 points) and Justin Faulk (down 20 points but missed 22 games to injury) on the Blues.

“You want everything to go right, and you want everything to go your way,” Schenn said. “Sometimes, it doesn’t. Early on, you worry about everything else that’s going on around you. Sometimes you forget about worrying about yourself. I’m not saying that selfishly; I’m saying that you have to be able to perform and not let certain things affect you early on, which maybe I did.”

Before this season, Schenn wore a letter at different levels of hockey. He was an alternate and then a captain with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL. On the international stage, he wore an A for Canada at the World Juniors and again later at the World Championship. Across the past three seasons in St. Louis, Schenn was part of the leadership group under Ryan O’Reilly.

Schenn is 32 years old and might hit 1,000 games played next season. But still, he said, “When you think you know a lot or everything, you kind of realize you don’t know a whole lot. You just keep on learning, and that’s the best part about it.

“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t go home some days and, when you’re not winning and not playing the way you want, and saying that I’m not thinking about it. You’re always trying to find ways to get yourself to play better, the team to play better, guys to buy in to what we’re trying to create here. That comes with learning, and that comes with talking to guys and leaning on guys around you.”

Part of the reason the Blues chose Schenn as captain was because of his relationships with his teammates, but even caring too much might have become an issue for him this season, Armstrong said.

“I think the one thing when I look back on, and when I talked to him, is that (he should) breathe, enjoy the process and don’t put too much of this” on himself, Armstrong said. “He cares so much about the team and so much about every individual that it’s hard to do all that and still be the best you can be on the ice. I thought he did a great job at it.

“I think next year, he’s going to be able to pick his battles a little bit more — pick his battles with the manager, pick his battles with the coach, pick his battles with his teammates a little better. That just comes from maturation.”

When Schenn did get going offensively, it was in bunches. Likewise, his droughts were lengthy.

He went through a 16-game goalless stretch in December and January, which also included a 12-game pointless streak nested within that. But he busted out of it with 11 points in 10 games, which included key momentum-swinging goals (such as a shorthanded one in Calgary) and overtime plays (goal in Vancouver, assist in Seattle).

Then he went directly into an 18-game goal drought, one away from tying his career-worst skid. And when he snapped out of it? Fifteen points in the team’s final 16 games, including a two-goal performance in a pivotal game vs. Edmonton.

“One thing I will say about Schenner and how proud I was of him (is) certainly in the last eight weeks and how he played for our team in different situations, whether it was at wing or at center,” Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said. “I think it shows you the growth of him as a person, as a captain, as a player. I thought he played some of our best hockey in the last eight weeks here where it was really meaningful games. I think that says a lot about the person and the character and the growth of him as a captain.”

Schenn will be back next season as part of a forward group that figures to be mostly the same — Kasperi Kapanen and Sammy Blais were the only two unrestricted free agents — hoping to return to the postseason after back-to-back years of missing the playoffs.

“We feel like we are going to get this right here,” Schenn said. “It’s funny, we’re not sitting here and saying that we’re happy in the position we’re in because we’re out of the playoffs. We feel like we’re a lot closer than what maybe people think.”