Projecting the Blues’ 2024-25 opening-night lineup after recent roster changes

The St. Louis Blues’ roster is set for the 2024-25 season, general manager Doug Armstrong said recently — with a predictable caveat.

“I would say yes,” Armstrong said. “(But) we can alter it a little bit if we can improve it.”

This may not sit well with the portion of the fan base that remains skeptical of any significant trade being made on defense this summer. But the GM has not deviated from his plan of drafting and developing and only making the moves that add up in the long term.

The Blues weren’t active at the start of free agency last week, re-signing forward Kasperi Kapanen to a one-year, $1 million contract and signing Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph to a one-year, $950,000 deal. But that doesn’t mean they sat by idly.

“We had talked to a lot of players,” Armstrong said. “(But) the reports of what might happen made it look like it was going to be an expensive day, and it turned out being that way.”

The Blues also made four trades:

• Acquiring Ottawa Senators winger Mathieu Joseph and a 2025 third-round draft pick for future considerations
• Acquiring Dallas Stars center Radek Faksa for future considerations
• Acquiring Columbus Blue Jackets’ winger Alexandre Texier for a 2025 fourth-round pick
• Sending center Kevin Hayes and a 2025 second-round pick to the Penguins for future considerations

In the end, the club added four bottom-six forwards and one bottom-pair defenseman and moved out one bottom-six forward.

The conclusion certainly won’t be that Armstrong has done enough to help the Blues return to the playoffs. But he does feel like he’s bolstered the bottom-six forwards and created more competition by adding to the depth of that group.

“We need the big dogs to be the big dogs — that’s the reality of it,” Armstrong said. “We need Jordan Kyrou to have a good year, Robert Thomas to have a good year and Pavel Buchnevich to have a good year. They’re going to have to maximize their games for us to have a good season.

“But we’re comfortable where we are today. We’re a better team right now than we were at the end of last season. We’re faster, we’re more determined, and we’re bigger. It’s not sexy, but it’s effective.”

We won’t know how effective until the Blues begin the 2024-25 season in October. But for now, let’s see what the new additions mean as far as projecting the opening-night lineup.

Those decisions, particularly the line combinations and defensive pairings, will be up to head coach Drew Bannister, but Armstrong did shed some light on the possibilities during recent interviews.

The Blues did have a major signing in free agency, agreeing to a six-year, $48 million extension with Buchnevich. He still had one more year left on his current deal, which means that he wouldn’t have become an unrestricted free agent until next summer and he’s contractually in the fold for the next seven seasons.

This is important because, when mapping out the future of the Blues, Buchnevich will be it. He’ll be in the team’s top-six forward group and can play both wing or center.

“We asked him left wing or center and his response was what you want to hear as someone who works in the hockey department: ‘I don’t really care; I just want to win,'” Armstrong said. “So if we find different centermen, he can go back to the wing. But now he can start at center and we can find wingers.”

So as it sits this summer, the Blues’ depth chart at center is Thomas, Buchnevich, Faksa, Oskar Sundqvist (who is recovering from knee surgery) and Brayden Schenn, if needed.

“Or (Dalibor) Dvorsky,” Armstrong said.

The Blues’ 2023 first-round pick is a 19-year-old prospect who might have long odds of making the roster as a rookie, but he didn’t do anything to disappoint at the team’s recent development camp. But for now, let’s say that Sundqvist is healthy and ready to go, and we’ll hold off on Dvorsky until we see how camp goes.

Which wingers, then, should we wrap around these centers?

Jake Neighbours had a promising first full season in the NHL with 27 goals and 38 points in 77 games. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

I’m putting Jake Neighbours and Kyrou on the top line with Thomas.

At age 21, Neighbours had an incredible first full season in the NHL with 27 goals and 38 points in 77 games. Of those 27 goals, 20 were scored from the high-danger area, and overall, he converted on 18.6 percent of his shots.

“We have to find out, is that Jake Neighbours, or is he a better player than he was last year, or was that a shooting-percentage thing?” Armstrong said. “That’s up to him to tell us.”

When Neighbours did play on the top line last season, it was with Thomas and Buchnevich, but with Buchnevich centering our second line, we’ll go with Kyrou and see if there’s some chemistry with those three.

As for Buchnevich’s wingers and the rest of the projected lineup, I was listening for clues from Armstrong and there were a few. He referenced Schenn and Saad by name when discussing the team’s top players that needed to come through, and also mentioned that if Zack Bolduc could break into the top six, “that would be great.”

So I have Saad and Schenn on the wings, with Schenn on the right side, where he played his best hockey last season. You could put one of those two on left wing on the top line with Thomas and Kyrou and bump Neighbours down to right wing on the second line, but I’ll stick with what I have.

Now we’re onto the bottom six, where there were more clues. When assembling forward combinations, teams often keep pairs together, and Armstrong listed two of those potential pairs: Alexey Toropchenko and Texier, Joseph and Kapanen.

So connecting those dots, we could see Faksa centering Toropchenko and Texier on the third line, and Sundqvist in the middle of Joseph and Kapanen on the fourth line.

“We wanted to get to be a faster team,” Armstrong said. “If you look at our third and fourth lines, I don’t think we’ve ever had better skaters now. With Faksa and (Sundqvist), 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. So I like the makeup of that group. It’s different than we’ve had in the past just because of its natural skating ability.”

If Bolduc plays in the top six, Saad or Schenn could drop to the third line, causing a trickle-down effect that could kick Kapanen out of the lineup.

Armstrong also expects Nathan Walker and Zach Dean to push for a roster spot, and that may be more feasible if Sundqvist isn’t ready to return at the start of the season.

“Walks, he’s not giving jobs away,” Armstrong said. “I think Dean needs to come in, look those center icemen in the eye and say, ‘I want your job.’ And they have to look him in the eye and say, ‘You’re not having it.’ I think there’s going to be competition.”

In a roundabout way, that’s part of the reason why the Blues traded Hayes to Pittsburgh.

“It opens it up for some of these other guys, knowing they can push,” Armstrong said. “It allowed us to look at Faksa (as a trade option) without a log jam. We paid a price (a second-round pick), and it’s not ideal. But you know what, it opened us up to be able to do things today without the players here wondering, ‘OK, how does everybody fit?’ If there’s extra players, everybody wonders how they fit. I think it’s a little clearer now when you look at our depth charts with our 16 forwards that believe they should be on the team.”

Projected lines

Neighbours – Thomas – Kyrou
Saad – Buchnevich – Schenn
Toropchenko – Faksa – Texier/Bolduc
Joseph – Sundqvist – Kapanen

Extras: Walker, Dean

Defensively, not much has changed with the lineup — yet, at least.

Among the top four, I think everyone expected Colton Parayko, Nick Leddy and Justin Faulk to be back. Torey Krug continues to be the one who could be moved eventually, but that may not be this summer.

“If we come back with the same group, it’s the same group,” Armstrong said. “With our right side being pretty well connected with Parayko, Faulk and (Matthew) Kessel, we were focusing on the left side. If you look at the left-shot D that have signed (in free agency), it wasn’t a huge market in that area. So now you look at trades, and you look at other ways to improve your team.”

It won’t be the same group entirely, however.

Marco Scandella is a free agent and remains unsigned. Replacing him, the Blues signed left-shot defenseman P.O. Joseph, Mathieu’s younger brother. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound blueliner played 147 NHL games, including 52 with Pittsburgh last season.

“We added a big, lanky player, kills plays, good skater,” Armstrong said of Joseph.

The Blues will likely keep just seven defensemen, with Tucker and Joseph battling for a lineup spot and pushing Perunovich for playing time.

All that aside, things could change quickly with a trade.

Projected pairings

Leddy – Parayko
Krug – Faulk
Perunovich – Kessel

Extras: Tucker, Joseph

In net, it’s expected to be Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer back as the Blues’ tandem. They were terrific together last season, posting the fourth-best save percentage in the NHL (.913).

Goalies

Binnington
Hofer

That roster includes 22 players under contract for a total of $79.9 million, which is $8.1 million under the league’s $88 million cap. That cap hit could change with any roster moves between now and the start of the season, but either way, the Blues aren’t expected to spend to the cap this season.

Armstrong knows this isn’t a Stanley Cup-contending team with the roster assembled as is now, but he likes the changes that were made this offseason and believes that he’s kept them on track with the retool.

(Top photo of Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich: Rick Ulreich / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)