2025-26 NHL Prospect Pool Breakdown: St. Louis Blues’ Top 10

[BalotelliMassive]

For me the ultimate judge of a hockey players level is how they play in the playoffs or high pressure games like the olympics or 4 nation nonsense. Panarin is one of the best regular season players I've watched recently...once the post season hits he turns into a ghost. I get that the point is to get there first - imo you don't know what you've got until they're put in key situations during do or die games.

[STL fan in MN]

For me the ultimate judge of a hockey players level is how they play in the playoffs or high pressure games like the olympics or 4 nation nonsense. Panarin is one of the best regular season players I've watched recently...once the post season hits he turns into a ghost. I get that the point is to get there first - imo you don't know what you've got until they're put in key situations during do or die games.

This is very true. But I’ll also note that sometimes it takes a while and a good amount of playoff failure before playoff success. For example, I’d imagine most would remember Yzerman a playoff hero that led the Wings to many Cups but that wasn’t always the case. At one time, he was in his later 20s, considered a failure, a bad captain and many Wings fans were ready to run him out of town. Then they clicked and we know the rest.

[BalotelliMassive]

For me the ultimate judge of a hockey players level is how they play in the playoffs or high pressure games like the olympics or 4 nation nonsense. Panarin is one of the best regular season players I've watched recently...once the post season hits he turns into a ghost. I get that the point is to get there first - imo you don't know what you've got until they're put in key situations during do or die games.

This is very true. But I’ll also note that sometimes it takes a while and a good amount of playoff failure before playoff success. For example, I’d imagine most would remember Yzerman a playoff hero that led the Wings to many Cups but that wasn’t always the case. At one time, he was in his later 20s, considered a failure, a bad captain and many Wings fans were ready to run him out of town. Then they clicked and we know the rest.

A friend of mine (huge Blues fan) always said that a team can't win the cup until they have a deep run a year or two prior....it's like they learn what it takes to get their game to the next level.

It seems like Armstrong put his money on Holloberg because of what they did in the playoffs.