St. Louis Blues: The most underrated center core in the league

Center depth separates the good teams from the great. Pittsburgh set the tone three years ago. Now, it’s the St. Louis Blues’ turn.

Ever since the Pittsburgh Penguins won two Stanley Cups in three seasons, the importance of center depth has been magnified. Centers are key in controlling possession, driving the play, and improving both the power play and penalty kill. This offseason, we saw three major centers go to different teams. John Tavares went to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Paul Stasny to the Vegas Golden Knights, and Ryan O’Reilly to the St. Louis Blues.

After making it to the playoffs for six straight seasons, the Blues snapped that streak last season when they missed out by one point. They’ve always been in the contender conversation, but have never been a true threat.

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The Blues had two big offensive problems. First, their offense wasn’t deep enough and secondly, they finished 30th in the league in the powerplay. If they wanted to be real contenders, they would have to address these problems.

Their first line of Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn, and Vladimir Tarasenko was a force, but they didn’t have much after that. To solve that, they pulled some giant strings and acquired O’Reilly from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for two veterans, a promising rookie, and a second-round pick in 2021.

In free agency, they signed power play specialist Tyler Bozak to a three-year deal worth $15 million. Practically overnight, the Blues went from lacking center depth to one of the best in the league.

Take a look at their projected lines on Daily Faceoff and you will see that they’ve taken care of that problem. On top of those centers, they also added David Perron, who recorded 66 points with the Golden Knights last season. Currently, he’s projected to play on their third line. If he played on the Blues last season, he would have finished second on the team in scoring.

As for the power play, Bozak was a specialist with the Maple Leafs. Since 2014-15, he has 59 powerplay points. He’s considered one of the best faceoff guys in the league and the only season where his faceoff percentage dipped below 52 percent was the season where he got injured and missed half the 2013-14 season.

O’Reilly finished first among the Sabres in powerplay goals and is even better at faceoffs than Bozak. Last season, his faceoff percentage was 60 percent.

Many people look at Toronto and Pittsburgh as the teams with incredible center depth, but very quickly, the Blues have inserted themselves into that conversation. Once they get their goaltending under control, they will be a very dangerous team.