Jimmy Snuggerud is giving the Blues a reason to believe the scoring punch they lost with Jordan Kyrou might already be coming from inside the building.
The conversation around St. Louis’ offense shifted quickly once Snuggerud arrived late in the 2024-25 season.
Dylan Holloway’s season-ending injury opened the door, then Doug Armstrong decided to promote Snuggerud to the NHL level. What followed was a 12-game franchise record-setting win streak, and the Blues wound up sneaking into the playoffs.
He was scattered around the lineup to start the 2025-26 season, but his role eventually settled in beside Holloway and Robert Thomas. That line caught fire late in the year and, for weeks, looked like the best trio in hockey, piling up goals while the rest of the offense lagged behind.
Now the spotlight is even brighter after St. Louis sent Kyrou to the Washington Capitals in a deal for Connor McMichael. Snuggerud is being asked to step into those goals, and the early returns say he may be up to the challenge.
He’s off to a rocky start along with the rest of that top line, which hasn’t found its rhythm consistently yet. Still, Snuggerud has been the most reliable of the three, and his scoring pace is exactly what the Blues need right now.
The 22-year-old has scored in back-to-back games and sits at five goals on the season, tying Mason McTavish for the team lead. His 1.87 goals per 60 minutes is a strong number, and it already stacks up favorably against anything Kyrou produced in his Blues run. It’s a small sample, sure, but it’s not nothing.
That’s where this gets interesting for St. Louis.
Snuggerud doesn’t need to be Kyrou overnight, and he’s nowhere near that level of résumé yet. But if he turns this into a 30-plus-goal season, the Blues will have a very different kind of answer at the top of the lineup.
What St. Louis has been chasing since Vladimir Tarasenko left is simple: someone steady, someone who keeps the offense moving without disappearing for long stretches.
Kyrou brought production, but not always the same night after night. Last season, that inconsistency helped seal his fate with the organization.
Snuggerud, meanwhile, has shown a different kind of dependable edge. Across last season and the first nine games of this one, he’s kept generating goals and putting shots on net. That consistency is still in its early stages, but it’s there.
He has a long way to go before he approaches the eight-season mark Kyrou put together in St. Louis. Even so, the Blues have a promising sign in front of them: their scoring future may already be taking shape, and Snuggerud is right in the middle of it.
In Other News...
Blues May Have A Fourth Line Fix That Comes With Risk
Early-season injuries forced the Blues to improvise on their fourth line, and the first wave of replacements did not give them much reason to feel settled. Dylan Peterson and Zach Dean were pressed into bigger roles than expected, but the results were uneven enough that St. Louis kept searching for a better answer while trying to preserve the identity that line is supposed to bring.
Now the club is leaning on a different mix, one that has more skill and a little more upside with the puck. The appeal is obvious, but so are the tradeoffs: the line still has to prove it can hold up physically and keep pace when it gets matched against tougher opposition, which is where the real test for this group will come. [Read more 🡒]
Blues Core Might Be Taking Shape After Huge Win Over Winnipeg
A 2-1 home win over the Winnipeg Jets gave the Blues another snapshot of what their emerging core could look like when things are clicking. Jimmy Snuggerud stayed in the middle of it again with a goal, Joel Hofer turned aside 32 shots, and the kind of timely contributions that have been missing at times were there in a game St. Louis needed against a quality opponent.
Philip Broberg also continued to push his case as an important piece for the Blues, adding an element from the back end that can change a tight game. Between the young talent up front, steady work in goal and a defenseman willing to lean into bigger moments, St. Louis is starting to see a roster mix that feels more than just promising on paper, even if there is still plenty left to sort out. [Read more 🡒]