The St. Louis Blues have had a miserable 2018-19 campaign, but their silver lining has been the amazing play from their prospects. Of all of those performances, the play of recently acquired Oskar Sundqvist has been the most surprising. Sundqvist came into St. Louis with a huge question mark over his head. After a terrible premier season with the Blues, 24-year-old Sundqvist is finally breaking into the NHL and becoming the standout player the Pittsburgh Penguins had always dreamed he’d be.
Sundqivst’s strong play is finally being recognized in St. Louis. He’s averaged top minutes with the club in recent games and is expected to only continue to score as a result. With all of the Blues struggles this year, Sundqvist has been the star.
The New St. Louis Blues Star: Oskar Sundqvist
What Brought him to St. Louis
Sundqvist came to St. Louis along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, which was used to pick star Russian forward Klim Kostin, in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins. In this deal, the Blues only shipped away Ryan Reaves and a second-round pick in the same draft year.
This deal was astonishing at the time. It became an even bigger loss for the Penguins when they dealt away Reaves at the trade deadline. Meanwhile, the trade is getting better with every game Sundqvist and Kostin play in the Blues system.
Kostin isn’t much of a surprise. He was one of the highest-ranked prospects coming out of Europe when he was drafted by the Blues and, while his numbers aren’t the best, is playing accordingly.
Sundqvist is the real surprise from that trade. When he was brought over to St. Louis, he was seen more as baggage instead of the main part of the deal. This was a bit reasonable, though. With Pittsburgh, Sundqvist was anything but special.
Time in Pittsburgh
He was drafted by the Penguins in the third round of the 2012 NHL Draft. Two picks after grabbing Sundqvist, the Penguins also drafted Matt Murray. The latter has turned into a star in Pittsburgh but Sundqvist could never find his groove. After being drafted, he played three years in Sweden with mediocre results.
When the 2015-16 season finally rolled around, Sundqvist made his move to North American hockey. He started the year off in the AHL before getting called up to the NHL in February. In the minors, he only had 17 points in 45 games. When he was called up, he totaled four points in eight games. All four of these points came in the latter half of the games he played. The nine-game scoring drought to start his career ended up being fairly representative of his career: struggling to score despite seeing a fair amount of ice time.
The weak 2015-16 season was seemingly left in the past, though, as Sundqvist went on to score 46 points in 63 AHL games the next year. He was looking much better and again received a late-season call-up as a result. It, again, was signified by a massive slump. In his 10 NHL games that season, he didn’t manage a single point. This completely trumped the strong AHL season he had. He joined Beau Bennett as Penguins fans’ favorite player to hate. Most saw him as yet another disappointing draft pick — an issue that had plagued the Penguins since 2007.
Move to Missouri
Because of the disappointment, there wasn’t much objection from the organization, or its fans when Sundqvist was dealt to St. Louis. He hadn’t done anything impressively during any season since his draft year. Yes, he was a strong forward with good skating abilities, but he didn’t have any particular skill that stood out.
First Year
His ability to be consistently disappointing continued in his first year with the Blues. He made the NHL roster to start the year and a lot of fans were eager to see if the trade would help change his fortunes. Apparently, the Blues organization was eager as well. They, somehow, let him play a whopping 42 NHL games last year, despite again not producing.
In those games, he only tallied five points. Starting the year off, he went on a nine-game scoring drought. During mid-year, a time when everyone in St. Louis was struggling, Sundqvist had a career-long 16 game point-less streak that lasted exactly four months. In short, he was again failing to do much of anything in the NHL. In short, he was shaping up to be a complete bust.
Second Year
Yet, that’s where Sundqvist turned things around. This year, he again started the year in the NHL, to many fans’ dismay. The Blues were cautious with him, though, making him watch the first eight games from the press box. When he finally did make it into the lineup, the Blues made him show that he deserved ice time. In his first two games, he played under ten minutes of ice time. He looked fairly strong in both, even recording an assist in the second, and thus got a few extra minutes of play in the third game. In that third game, he made well of his extra minutes with two goals.
This had been the basis of this year for Sundqvist. The team gave him ice time and he had to prove that he deserved it. So far, he’s done a good job of it. On the year, he has a career-high 14 points in 38 games. This level of production has earned him three significant increases in ice time. In recent games, Sundqvist has been a top player in St. Louis. He also has seen a lot of minutes on both the power-play and penalty kill.
Looking Forward This Year
He’s at another proving-point again as the Blues claw their way back into playoff contention. In his last five games, he’s averaged a career-high 17:10 minutes of ice time each game. He’s done well with it, scoring four points throughout that stretch. It’s looking like after six years of disappointment, Sundqvist may have finally found a home among the St. Louis Blues star players.
Looking at the year as a whole, Sundqvist has finally started to stand out from the pack. His skating is at a seemingly elite level. Despite standing at 6’3″ and 209 pounds, Sundqvist is one of the fastest players on the ice when he wants to be. His size also helps him be one of the strongest, a skill that he was originally drafted for. These both combine with better shooting, passing, and a great work ethic. It’s almost like the Blues found a brand new player to wear number 70 this year. With the increased minutes coming his way, hopes are that Sundqvist can continue scoring.
Overview
At 24 years old, Sundqvist still has plenty of time to become an NHL mainstay if he can keep playing this way. Instead of going the way of the dodo, Sundqvist has been playing the best hockey of his life. With other Blues struggling, Sundqvist is finding a comfortable spot in the team’s top six. It being a contract year for the young forward, he’ll likely be a highly sought after top-six player this summer as well.
In short, Sundqvist is blowing up in his final chance to make it in the NHL. He went from being out of a job in a year to being a top player with his team. Being young and seemingly very good at improving almost every aspect of his team in just one year, it seems Sundqvist can only go up from here. It’s time for Blues fans to stop questioning whether Sundqvist is an NHL talent, and start questioning whether the Blues can keep their newly found star when he becomes a restricted-free-agent this summer.
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