St. Louis Blues 2021 Season Preview- In harmony or will they fall flat?

The St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup in 2019. This past season they were very good but in my opinion, they got too cocky. They were matched with the Vancouver Canucks, and assumed very little effort would be needed to win. And then they lost. The Canucks have an excellent team, and they’re hungry for a win. 

Key Additions: Torey Krug (Boston Bruins) 

Krug came from the Bruins in free agency. He went undrafted in 2012 but turned out to be a crucial member of their defense. He and David Pasternak were the Boston Dynamic Duo. It will be exciting to see how his experience in Boston mends with the experience of the players in St. Louis. 

Losses: Alex Pietrangelo (Vegas Golden Knights) 

Pietrangelo signed with Vegas in free agency after playing in St. Louis since 2008. He was named captain in 2016 and led them to the Stanely Cup in 2019. He’s a defenseman and scored the game-winning goal in 2019. A team losing their captain is always hard to recover from. 

Forward Line Predictions: 

LW	C	RW
Jaden Schwartz	Brayden Schenn	Robert Thomas
Zach Sanford	Ryan O’Reilly	David Perron
Sammy Blais	Tyler Bozak	Oskar Sundqvist
Kyle Clifford	Ivan Barbashev	Jordan Kyrou

Defensive Pairing Predictions: 

Torey Krug	Colton Parayko
Marco Scandella	Justin Faulk
Vince Dunn	Robert Bortuzzo

The Blues’ right defense has a lot of size and build and the left defense is very fast. Vince Dunn and Torey Krug are quick on the backend so I thinking have that speed to balance the size on the other side will benefit them a lot. 

In the net: 

Ville Husso and Jordan Binnington are more than likely going to be the starting goalies for this season. Ville Husso was injured last season when they started to transition away from Jake Allen so he has slightly less experience than they would like but he’s still a good goaltender. He has the skills, it’s just a matter of building them and fine tuning them. It’ll be a good season for Blues goaltending. 

NHL New Wave; Connor McDavid

The Verdict: 

This St. Louis Blues roster is a big one. They have a lot of potential and young players. They’ll make the playoffs for sure. I don’t think it’s a cup run for them but maybe in the next few seasons, they can bring it home again. I don’t foresee this team hitting a true slump for a while. 

Other NHL Previews:

Senators, Canes, Bruins,

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