Blues forward Jake Neighbours keys win over Ducks, showcases 'old school mentality' (2024)

For someone so young, Jake Neighbours still holds a diploma from the old school.

The 21-year-old Blues winger plays the game as a throwback persona — mucking it up in the crease and in the corners, fighting battles for pucks and with punches, simultaneously becoming the biggest surprise on the team this season and one of its most important players.

On Sunday, during a 4-2 Blues win over the Ducks, Neighbours was key to the team’s fourth straight victory, steadying it to three power-play goals in the third period to turn a ho-hum opening 40 minutes into a comfortable third period.

“He makes a living around the net,” Blues forward Robert Thomas said. “He’s hard down there, he gets open, he screens, he does a lot of little things that make all the world (of difference). I think he deserves a lot of credit for the power-play success tonight.”

Thomas scored two goals, as Neighbours and Kevin Hayes added one for the Blues. Troy Terry scored twice for the Ducks.

With the win, the Blues won four in a row for the second time this season and kept pace with Vegas in the Western Conference standings. The Golden Knights won on Sunday afternoon, meaning St. Louis remained four points behind for the final wild card spot in the West.

“We found a way to win, and that’s the important thing,” Thomas said. “I don’t think it was our best game by any means, but when you find a way to win, you can’t complain.”

Neighbours was the focal point in the third period as the Blues tried to break a 1-1 tie after second intermission.

He screened Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal on Thomas’ first goal, a wrist shot from the high slot that Neighbours blinded Dostal to. He tipped Brayden Schenn’s shot from the flank minutes later. Even after that, Thomas’ pass intended for Neighbours banked off a Ducks defender in the crease and into the net.

Three goals, three ways to own the net-front.

“It’s just the way he plays the game of hockey,” Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said. “It’s not even just net-front on the power play. He plays hard, right? He’s willing to go there. He’s willing to do the hard things out there. It’s tough. Not everyone likes to play that way, but he does.

“It’s a little bit more of an old school mentality, but he’s willing to go there and he’s getting rewarded for it. You hope that a lot of guys see that and know that it’s kind of a thankless job because you get hit with pucks a lot, pucks coming at your face quite a bit.”

Neighbours has been a revelation for the Blues this season, and his 22 goals are third on the team behind Pavel Buchnevich (24) and Thomas (23). He’s become a fixture in the top-six, and a mainstay since mid-January on the top power play unit. He is one goal away from tying for the league-lead among players selected in the 2020 draft.

Many of his goals have come at the net-front, and he said “I don’t think I’m going to change it. It’s been working well for me, and no plans to change it up any time soon.”

“It’s a big different, you’re kind of looking at the game differently than everybody else,” Neighbours said. “I don’t know, it’s difficult. I think I’m still looking to find my positioning. I think sometimes I’m too far off to the side, or not as square as I’d like to be. So there’s still improvements to be made.”

Neighbours is something of a unicorn. Not that he plays at the net-front. Not that he’s young. Not that he’s listed at 6-foot. Not that he was drafted outside the top 20. But that he’s all of those things.

The league leaders in tips and deflections this season is littered with the best net-front forwards in the league. There’s Chris Kreider (58), Matthew Tkachuk (43), Anders Lee (42), Jake Guentzel (41) and Joe Pavelski (41), all guys that have made their careers netcentric.

But they’re all experienced.

This season, only four players under 25 have put at least 25 tips and deflections on goal: Brady Tkachuk, Quinton Byfield, Alexis Lafreniere … and Neighbours. That’s a No. 4 pick, a No. 2 pick, a No. 1 pick and the Blues’ epiphany in the blue paint.

“He’s done a great job net-front, and that’s a big part of the power play’s success since we’ve put him in that position,” Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said.

It’s no surprise that the Blues power play improved when Neighbours made his permanent move to the top power play unit on Jan. 11 against the Rangers. Since then, the Blues are fourth in the league at 10.13 goals per 60 minutes, according to Natural Stat Trick.

With Neighbours on the ice on the power play since Jan. 11, the Blues score 7.14 more goals per hour than with him off the ice. That figure is 17th-best in the NHL, as Neighbours trails Zach Hyman and Alex Ovechkin, and is just ahead of Mats Zuccarello and Elias Pettersson.

Neighbours used to play the flank in junior, and he bounced around to different spots in the AHL before finding a home at the net-front in the NHL.

“You’ve got to adapt,” Neighbours said. “When you jump to the next level, you’re not always going to have the spot you had in junior or wherever it is. Whatever I can do to get on the power play and stay on it, I’m going to do.”

Thomas added: “The way power plays are going now, you really need a good net-front. He’s been a big part of it.”

Neighbours is shooting 17.1% this season, a bloated figure that may come down in future seasons, but maybe not by much. Players around the net tend to have higher shooting percentages because, well, their shots are from a more dangerous area. Kreider is at 15.1% for his career. Guentzel, too.

According to NHL Edge data, Neighbours has 68 high-danger shots on goal this season, which puts him in the 95th percentile among forwards.

And without Neighbours, perhaps the Blues aren’t able to stretch the win streak to four games and keep up in the playoff hunt.

“It’s a good feeling, but there’s no satisfaction at all,” Neighbours said. “We still have a lot of work to do and we’re still chasing and we still need points. It’s kind of a one game at a time attitude. Keep trying to grab points where we can get them and just take it game by game. If we do our job, hopefully, we’ll sneak in there.”