Number Crunch: St. Louis Blues have finishing problems to blame

Seravalli: “The St. Louis Blues have been an interesting team to watch this season. I’ve called them the binary team because they’re either going on a winning streak or they’re on a long losing streak. They had 109 points this year and they’ve regressed significantly to this point in 2022-23. What do you notice when you watch the Blues?

Charron: “St. Louis was a really fun team to watch a year ago because they were so good at converting on their chances. They had really good playmakers, specifically, Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou are really good at zipping the puck around the ice, Vladimir Tarasenko and Pavel Buchnevich also really work really well as a combination. When you can create those passes, you’re doing to have a better chance of scoring because you’re getting the goalie moving.

When I watched them, the Blues are finishing a lot worse than they were last season. I’ve looked at finishing as goals for minus expected goals for divided by shots for to see which Blues forwards are causing the drop in production for the team…

It seems like a handful of Blues forwards were overperforming a little last season and now they’re underperforming a little this season. It might not seem like a lot but when you put those over and underperformance together, that can turn into 10 or 15 goals by the middle point of the season and that’s three or four wins right there.

Seravalli: “I’m looking at the graphic of all of the teams in the NHL and their change in finishing from last season to this season, and the team worst in terms of change right now is the Colorado Avalanche. But I’m also noticing that they’re not even at a full two percent difference over the two seasons. Can you give us some perspective on what each percentage means in terms of total goal change?

Charron: “It’s about 10 goals at one percent. There’s going to be positive and negative regression both ways. The teams at the top will slow down and the teams at the bottom will start finishing. There’s even less concern for a team like Colorado with all of their injuries, once they get back players like Gabriel Landeskog back in the lineup.”

You can watch the full episode here…