
The Blues’ Nathan Walker, left, battles with Calgary’s Walker Duehr in a game on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025, at Enterprise Center.
Maybe, in another few weeks, the song playing over the public address system would qualify as an example of a “life imitating art†moment.
However, we’re not there yet.
As the Blues got set for a faceoff in their offensive zone with the line of Nathan Walker, Oskar Sundqvist and Zack Bolduc on the ice in the first period against the Calgary Flames on Thursday night in Enterprise Center, blared through the speakers, “You made me a, you made me a believer, believer.â€
Despite the Blues’ 4-1 win that wrapped a four-game homestand with three wins, including back-to-back victories against a club they’re chasing in the Western Conference standings, “belief†remains a bit too strong a descriptor for the feeling the Blues evoke.
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They’ve still got more work to do, and the season is more than half over.
“We need to go on a streak,†Blues captain Brayden Schenn said after his two-goal performance against the Flames. “That’s just the reality of it. We just can’t be satisfied that we beat Calgary twice and then go on the road and not play well. So, step by step. We have to have a good road trip here coming up.â€
Winning three out of four games earned the Blues (22-20-4, 48 points) the right to sit in 10th place in the through Thursday night.
They’d registered the same point total as the ninth-place Vancouver Canucks and moved to within a point of the eighth-place Flames (49 points). Both those teams have played two fewer games, so they have more points available to them going forward than the Blues.
The Blues go into Salt Lake City this weekend, where the Utah Hockey Club (18-19-7) has , looking for its first three-game win streak of the season.
The Blues also go in still trying to establish a consistent standard of play and with the club on notice that coach Jim Montgomery isn’t afraid to shuffle the deck.
The homestand began with Montgomery calling for more consistency from his team, individually and collectively. He’s continued to beat that drum throughout the past two weeks.
In case anything got lost in translation, Montgomery also pushed his message across with the trump card every coach holds — playing time.
“I believe in communicating why you’re staying in the lineup,†Montgomery said. “I believe in communicating what you need to do, because you’ve been pulled out, when you get back in. I think that’s really important so players aren’t left guessing, that they know what they need to do when they get back in the lineup or what they need to do most importantly to stay in the lineup.
“But the most important part for us is we’re trying to gain consistency in how we play every night, and the players that reward us with that are going to be rewarded with ice time. They’re going to be rewarded with playing games.â€
That Walker-Sundqvist-Bolduc line featured two players in Walker and Bolduc who were out of the lineup for Tuesday night’s game against the Flames. Thursday, that duo replaced forwards Alexandre Texier and Brandon Saad in the lineup. Saad appeared in his 900th career game earlier in the homestand.
Forward Mathieu Joseph just returned to the lineup Tuesday after three consecutive games spent watching.
“That just shows that you have to come to the rink every single day, prepare, and whether its practice hard (or) play hard,†Schenn said. “There’s a lot of good guys that are, one, playing right now and, two, sitting out. So that just kind of keeps you accountable.â€
Meanwhile, we shouldn’t gloss over the fact the Blues won three of four games.
Several of the players who have provided the team some measure of consistent production this season — the line of Dylan Holloway, Brayden Schenn and Jordan Kyrou as well as defenseman Colton Parayko — put a bow on the homestand.
The Blues imposed their will Thursday with three first-period goals. Their first score came as a result of Holloway’s tenacious play. He lost the puck behind the opponent’s net, then alertly poked it free from a Flames player, gathered it and fed Schenn perfectly for a top-shelf goal.
Parayko’s slap shot and Kyrou’s wrister gave the Blues breathing room before the first intermission.
The Blues even tacked on a power-play goal in the second period to restore a three-goal advantage after the Flames pulled within 3-1. Schenn’s second goal of the night marked the Blues’ first 5-on-4 power play goal since they played in Minnesota on January 7 (they scored in a 6-on-4 situation late in 2-1 loss to Columbus last Saturday).
In a vacuum this four-game stretch could seem like the start of something for the Blues, but remember that they’d lost three of four games just before this week’s two-game mini-series against the Flames.
“The mindset going into this week was essentially it’s our playoff push,†Holloway said. “We needed these points bad. It’s big games for us, and we came through. I think that shows a lot about our group, our resiliency, just our ability to show up when it counts. I think we’re going to keep that momentum going here for our road trip,†which concludes with a game Monday in Las Vegas.
Keeping the momentum going will be easier said than done.
Even if Utah’s futility on home ice continues, the Blues then travel to the Nevada desert where they’ll play the Vegas Golden Knights (29-12-3, 61 points) in the first of two games in a home-and-home series.
So the Blues have bought a little more time to make us believers.