O'Reilly has new perspective, aims for Stanley Cup repeat with Blues

Ryan O'Reilly said helping the St. Louis Blues win the Stanley Cup for the first time in their history last season gave him a new perspective.

"I think it's completely revamped my entire hockey career," O'Reilly said June 5 on the "Hockey Sense Podcast" with Andy Strickland. "In the NHL, never really getting a good taste of winning and never winning a playoff series and then coming here (St. Louis) and you win the ultimate hockey goal. It completely changed that part of me to be now known as a winner."

The center missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs in seven of his nine seasons with the Colorado Avalanche and Buffalo Sabres and failed to advance past the first round with the Avalanche in 2010 and 2014. He won the Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy, voted as the most valuable player of the postseason, to complete his first season in St. Louis and will get a chance to repeat when the Blues participate in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers among the top four teams in the Western Conference to determine seeds for the 2020 playoffs.

"It's been amazing but also getting a taste of it, you want to do it again and when you look at our team, we're going to have another opportunity to do that, so there's a lot of excitement there," O'Reilly said.

O'Reilly scored a Blues-high 61 points (12 goals, 49 assists) in 71 games before the 2019-20 season was paused March 12 due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus. St. Louis (42-19-10, .662) owned the best points percentage in the Western Conference and will join the Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars in the round-robin.

The Blues' opponent in the Western Conference First Round will be determined by who emerges from the best-of-5 Stanley Cup Qualifiers. The highest remaining seed in each conference will play the lowest remaining seed in that conference, the second-highest remaining seed will play the second-lowest remaining seed, and so forth. It will not be predetermined by a set bracket, the format that had been used since 2013-14. The seeding order for these top four teams will remain the same throughout the playoffs.

The Stanley Cup Qualifiers will be held at two hub cities to be identified, each for the Eastern Conference and Western Conference teams, and begin at a date to be determined.

"I don't think there's a team we look at that we can't beat," O'Reilly said. "We look at this as a we take on who we have to take on and go from there. It's going to be very weird, the setup, the host cities and such, but it's hockey. It's our job to do it. We're all kind of excited to get back playing."

The NHL announced its Return to Play Plan on May 26 with 24 teams in competition for the Stanley Cup. The games to determine seeding will be played with regular-season overtime and shootout rules with ties in the standings broken by regular-season points percentage. Phase 2 of the plan begins Monday, allowing players to skate and work out together in small groups at team facilities. Phase 3 would be a full-team training camp, which will not begin before July 10.

"The first week I think it's going to be extremely tough just getting those skating muscles, shooting, all those different things back in kind of shape," said O'Reilly, who remained in St. Louis during the pause for the birth of his second child. "But after that first week, you'll see that guys will start to feel better and I would say three weeks guys will be ready to go. It's going to be tough to jump into these games the way we will, but every team is doing it. Everyone's kind of from the same starting point, so it's still going to be very competitive and I'm very excited for it."

Traded to the Blues by the Sabres on July 1, 2018 for forwards Patrik Berglund, Vladimir Sobotka, Tage Thompson and two draft picks, O'Reilly established NHL career highs with 28 goals, 49 assists and 77 points last season and won the Selke Trophy voted as the best defensive forward in the League. He helped St. Louis climb from last in the Western Conference on Jan. 3 to Stanley Cup champions and scored an NHL-high 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists) in 26 postseason games.

"We're getting a chance to compete for a Cup," O'Reilly said. "People are starving to get sports back, even if it's just on TV. It will still bring a lot of excitement and help people get back into some of that normalcy."