Blues focused on creating 'Stanley Cup' standard for process, not on losses: 'Results are secondary'
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Jeremy Rutherford
Coach Jim Montgomery says that at this stage of a retool, the goal is to develop players who "set the standard of a Stanley Cup tradition."
ST. LOUIS — When St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong met with reporters in mid-December, he was asked about the team’s coaching staff. With so much going wrong this season, what were his thoughts on the job Jim Montgomery and his staff had done?
“Well, A) their work ethic is excellent,” Armstrong said. “They’re pushing. They’re prodding. But they’re like everybody: a little bit confused on why we can’t snap out of this. I think everyone is pushing and prodding and trying to figure out how to do it — being patient in some areas and not as patient in others. But we have created that for the coaches. The coaches have not created that for us.”
That was a reference to the Blues’ retool, in which management has constructed a roster that it hopes can be competitive now while also ushering in the next wave of prospects. But whether it’s because of a lack of leadership or talent or they’re just underperforming, they just haven’t been a good team.
The Blues are 15-17-8 (38 points) heading into Wednesday’s game against the Colorado Avalanche, and they are 3-2-1 in the six games since Armstrong addressed the media, so not much has changed.
For that, the GM knows that he can’t let Montgomery and Co. off the hook.
“When your winning percentage is (low), there’s nobody having a good year,” Armstrong said. “I can’t be satisfied with the job I’m doing. I don’t think Monty is satisfied with the job he’s doing.
“It would be disingenuous to say, ‘He’s doing a great job.’ It’s hard to come out and say it with a straight face, ‘Oh no, (the staff is) really doing their job this year.’ Our record indicates that none of us has worked to the level that’s acceptable.”
But Armstrong doesn’t believe that the common complaints of fans, like the constant changing of line combinations, are necessarily valid.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “Everybody wants stability, but when things aren’t working, you make changes. It’s like, ‘Well, you lose three in a row and you change the lines, or you lose two in a row, and you change the lines,’ we’ve got no continuity. The coach has to make decisions based on what he’s seeing if it’s not working.
“The instability in our lines isn’t because they’re extremely successful and he’s saying, ‘Why don’t I screw around today and see what happens?’ It’s because we’re not successful and he has to try to get creative. He’s doing the best he can to make us stable, and you have to be willing to accept your change in how you’re deployed until we get stable.”
In the last week or so, Montgomery has made a lot of decisions, from limiting Jordan Kyrou’s shifts in the third period of a 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Monday to making newcomer Jonatan Berggren a healthy scratch. He’s shown a lot of trust in rookie Otto Stenberg, playing him on the second line and on the penalty kill. He’s also had a few honest conversations with Jimmy Snuggerud and Tyler Tucker, keeping up communication with the younger players.
And he’s done it with one goal in mind: setting a standard.
When Montgomery was hired in November 2024, he agreed to a five-year contract. The Blues sneaked into the playoffs in year one of that deal, and while year two hasn’t gone as planned, they’d like to get in again.
But either way, the coach has to establish control.
“Absolutely,” captain Brayden Schenn said. “That’s how good organizations and good teams establish a winning culture, by demanding a lot out of each other. We all want results — it’s a results-based league — but at the same time, you have to look at the process on the day-to-day.
“His job is to command the room, and there’s obviously players (with different) skillsets but also personalities. His job is to get the most out of them, and that’s how you get the results you want. It doesn’t happen overnight, but he’s definitely doing a good job of holding guys accountable.”
In early November, Montgomery made Kyrou a healthy scratch. On Monday, in a game the Blues trailed 3-2, Kyrou played just four shifts and 2:21 in the third period.
“He needs to move his feet,” Montgomery said. “He’s a weapon when he moves his feet and he’s skating, he’s creating turnovers, he’s skating pucks wide. I just didn’t see him doing those things.”
The Blues’ top line of Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich and Jake Neighbours combined for just three shots on goal and were minus-6 collectively Monday. But in the third period, between them, they had 28 shifts and nearly 17 minutes of ice time.
Asked about the responsibility of holding all of the team’s high-end players accountable, Montgomery said, “It is hard, just because, we’re losing 3-2. You want your best offensive weapons out there. When they’re not generating and they’re off of the standard that you expect from them, that’s when you’ve got to pull back on them because there’s other players. (But) I would prefer our offensive weapons to be out there.”
One newcomer who had been establishing himself as an offensive weapon was Berggren, who was claimed off waivers from the Detroit Red Wings. In his first three games with the Blues, he had two goals and two assists, leaving many to wonder how much the team should buy into his early success.
After five games, Berggren found himself as a healthy scratch Monday, with Montgomery saying he had “leveled off.”
“He just hasn’t been as tenacious on pucks,” he said. “It’s the habits and details that he needs to gain to become consistent with the way we play, so even when he’s not on offensively, he still can help us win. Professional sports are about winning, and as coaches, we resonate with players who have (good) sticks, stop on pucks, and win one-on-one battles. When you do that, you’re not going to come out of the lineup.”
Berggren understood.
“Monty is an honest coach,” he said. “If you do the hard work every day, you will get your chances. That’s fair, and that’s something I like. I’ve got to just keep doing it.”
After one game in the pressbox, Berggren was on the top line in Tuesday’s practice.
Stenberg, a 20-year-old first-round pick (2023), remains in the Blues’ lineup because he has been responsible in those areas.
“I saw the hockey sense with and without the puck,” Montgomery said, “but I didn’t know he was that competitive in one-on-one battles.”
The 5-foot-11, 188-pound winger said those battles have been an important part of his game since coming to North America from Sweden last season.
“Every shift,” Stenberg said. “Sometimes you need to be smart because I’m not the biggest and not the strongest guy on the ice. I just try to win those battles as much as I can.”
Stenberg has also shown an ability to have his stick in the right places, something he learned from incoming GM Alexander Steen in 2023, when Steen was in Sweden working as the Blues’ consultant for European player development.
“He was talking about those details, and I just think about it more,” Stenberg said. “I just try to read what the guy with the puck is going to do and then you can put your stick on your reads.”
With Pius Suter out at least a month with an ankle injury, Stenberg is seen as a player who can fill that role. But with four assists in six games, including a dandy setting up Schenn’s goal Monday, Montgomery believes there’s more potential point production.
So Stenberg has continued suiting up as Berggren, Robby Fabbri and Mathieu Joseph have been scratches in recent games.
“You’ve got to relish those habits and details,” Montgomery said. “They’re going to keep you in the lineup no matter where you play.”
Meanwhile, Montgomery is making sure his young core gets the support it needs from coaches.
At the start of Sunday’s practice, as players skated laps around the rink before the drills began, Montgomery sought out Snuggerud. The 21-year-old winger was coming off his first game back after a four-week absence following wrist surgery.
“I asked him how he thought his first game back was,” Montgomery said. “He said, ‘I thought I did some good things and some things were bad,’ and I agreed with him. I told him that I (limited his ice time) down the stretch because he had a couple of bad turnovers. But I told him, ‘You’re a helluva hockey player and now it’s up to you to play the way you always have, and you’ll be back out there in those moments.'”
Snuggerud, who then scored his sixth goal of the season Monday, appreciated the conversation. He’s heard from his father, Dave Snuggerud, who played 265 NHL games in the 1990s, that it wasn’t the same back then.
“It’s nice to know what you’re doing well and what you’re not doing well,” Snuggerud said. “It seems like there’s coaches, especially from my dad’s era — they just didn’t talk to them and let them figure it out for themselves. You have to play hard and execute, but it’s nice to earn the coach’s trust and earn that belief.”
Montgomery also had a brief chat with defenseman Tyler Tucker.
“I thought he was just average (in a 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay on Saturday),” Montgomery said. “I talked to him about it, and you know what’s great about him — you can just be dead honest with him. Some guys you can’t talk to them like that, but he was like, ‘I agree. I need to be better.’ I’m like, ‘All right, see you tomorrow.'”
Tucker preferred the quick chat over the 20-minute office visit.
“I knew. He knew. He let me know, and it was like a 15-second conversation,” Tucker said. “Just a little kick in the butt.”
While Montgomery spent time with Snuggerud and Tucker, assistant coach Claude Julien skated a few laps with Dalibor Dvorsky.
“He was talking about hockey stuff — what to do better on the ice, what he thinks about my game,” Dvorsky said. “It kind of narrows the things down, what I should work on. It’s good to know what they think.”
When you talk about coaching, this is one of the small details that always sticks out to me.
The Blues are skating laps before practice begins, and Monty is talking to Snuggerud and Claude Julien is chatting up Dvorsky. #stlbluespic.twitter.com/8aRCIMETOm
Whether it’s taking ice time away from a veteran, rewarding a rookie or touching base with others, the coaches are trying to make this a productive season, regardless of the wins and losses.
“I think results are secondary right now to our process,” Montgomery said. “Winning net-fronts, winning special teams, winning the Grade-A chances — there’s a lot of details that go into the major part of the process, and if we continue to be better at those things, the results will take care of themselves. I’ve always believed that, and I will always believe that.”
It’s a belief the Blues hope is instilled in their players.
“They put in long hours to prepare us, and we’re all in it together,” Tucker said.
“The coaches are clear with that, and they’re doing a great job with that,” Dvorsky said.
With the direction the Blues are headed, it’s especially important for the younger players.
“You want them to understand that this is the way you have to work to be a really good NHL player and help the Blues be a really good hockey team,” Montgomery said. “We’ve got Tucker, (Matthew) Kessel, (Logan) Mailloux, Stenberg, Dvorsky, Snuggerud.
“We have a lot of young players that we want to be the Brayden Schenns, the Ryan O’Reillys, the David Perrons of the future — the guys that have helped set the standard of a Stanley Cup tradition.”