Jimmy Snuggerud 'fit in' with the Blues in NHL debut, Jim Montgomery says

Snuggerud made his NHL debut for the Blues in a 2-1 overtime win over the Red Wings, and it was his first time inside Enterprise Center. He’d never played a preseason game there because he was with his college team. He wasn’t drafted there. If his University of Minnesota team had made the Frozen Four this year, Snuggerud would have played in the arena, but his introduction to the building came Tuesday.

Did he get lost at all?

“Yeah, I was trying to find the film room a couple times,” Snuggerud said.

In his debut, Snuggerud had two shots on goal and one giveaway in 10:43 of ice time across 15 shifts. He played 1:49 on the power play, was on the ice for 1:03 at the end of the third period with the extra attacker, and would have been on the ice in overtime for the next shift had Cam Fowler not won the game, Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.

Snuggerud started on a line with Oskar Sundqvist and Zack Bolduc, though Montgomery switched Jake Neighbours and Bolduc in search of a spark.

“I thought he was really good,” Montgomery said of Snuggerud. “I thought he made smart plays. I didn’t think he overcomplicated the game, and he made plays on first touch. That’s a really good sign of a hockey player with really good hockey sense. I thought he acquitted himself really well for his first game in the NHL. I was very confident putting him over the boards.”

Snuggerud’s first shot on goal came about midway through the first period, a wrist shot from the ring wing that Cam Talbot parried down before covering.

“You’re simulating what you think it’s going to be,” Snuggerud said. “Then you actually get out there and it’s a whole different pace, it’s a whole different level of hockey. It’s honestly fun to get that first game in and see the pace. It was nice to win with the guys.”

Snuggerud was the second high-profile Blues prospect to make his NHL debut recently. Dalibor Dvorsky played against the Predators on March 23, and Snuggerud’s treatment by the Blues crowd resembled how they treated Dvorsky.

They welcomed him with cheers when he took the ice for his rookie lap during warmup. When Snuggerud was shown on the video board before his first shift, the crowd erupted.

“I heard something,” Snuggerud said. “I didn’t know what it was for. That’s cool.”

In his welcome to the NHL, Snuggerud had a couple of pinch-me moments.

“Honestly, just seeing Patrick Kane from the bench tonight was a pretty weird moment,” Snuggerud said. “And then I got buried by Tarasenko in the first.”

Snuggerud, the team’s first-round pick in 2022, and Dvorsky (the No. 10 pick in 2023) are part of the next wave of Blues talent that is the core of the team’s current “retool.” Snuggerud spent three college seasons with Minnesota, scoring 66 goals in 119 games.

He replaced Mathieu Joseph in the lineup Tuesday night, and it’s unknown whether Snuggerud will stick, or whether he will watch as a healthy scratch like Dvorsky has.

“He was making things happen,” Montgomery said. “He drove that puck wide, and he went back post. We just missed a tap-in. That’s not the only clever play he made. I thought he was responsible defensively, he was working to get back. He fit in with the way our forwards have been working for each other.”

Kyrou brings the boom

In overtime Tuesday night, Blues forward Jordan Kyrou laid out Alex DeBrincat with an open-ice hit that regained possession for St. Louis after Kyrou and Dylan Holloway turned the puck over in the neutral zone.

“I think I was juiced at the end of my shift there,” Kyrou said. “I don’t think I would have been able to catch him, so I tried to catch him off guard.”

Kyrou had three hits in overtime alone, and his ones on DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond turned the puck over, even if only temporarily. Those were his only three hits in the game, though he led the Blues with six shots on goal, 10 shot attempts and he scored the game-tying goal in the final minute of the third period.

“That’s an easy pass normally for us, but you can make up for not being clean with effort,” Montgomery said. “That was a great effort play by Kyrou.”

Another effort play helped lead to the game-winning goal by Cam Fowler in overtime. Zack Bolduc’s check on Moritz Seider sprung the Blues on a 2 on 1 rush the other way, with Robert Thomas setting up Fowler for the winner.