Blues Training Camp 2023

What the Blues Training Camp 2023 Actually Is

The St. Louis Blues Training Camp 2023 was the preseason gathering held in early September at the World Arena in O'Fallon, Missouri, right before the regular season started. It's where the roster gets whittled down from roughly 45 guys on professional tryout contracts and development camp invitees to the final 23-man opening night roster. The media credential process opens around late August, and you need to apply through the NHL's media portal a few weeks ahead of time. If you miss that window, you're mostly out of luck for inside access. You don't just show up. There are two main routes: media credentials and public tickets. The media route is the standard path for writers and podcasters. You apply through the club's website under the media section, and they send out a press pass PDF that you display at the gate along with government ID. I've done this for years, and the approval rate is usually pretty high as long as you have a legitimate publication or outlet attached to your byline. If you're an independent writer with no affiliation, it gets harder. I've had passes denied a couple of times for that reason. The public route is more straightforward but also more limited. There are usually around 800 to 1,200 tickets available for training camp scrimmages, and they sell out fast. They go on sale through the Blues ticketing website, typically in mid-August. I'd recommend setting up an account and having your payment info ready before the sale starts, because the page tends to lag when traffic spikes. I lost access to a good seat at a camp session once because I waited too long to log in.

There's a third option that a lot of people don't know about: work volunteering. The organization sometimes pulls in volunteers to help with parking, shuttle logistics, and guest services during camp week. It doesn't get you into the rink, but you do end up close enough to overhear a lot of useful information about who's playing well and who's struggling. I've picked up more story leads from volunteer shifts than I have from covering three full practices.

What Actually Happens During the Week

The structure is fairly rigid. Mornings are split-squad scrimmages, afternoons are full-ice walkthroughs with position-specific work, and there's usually one open skate that the media attends before the final cutdown. The coaching staff runs everything on a timer. Each drill segment is planned out in 12-minute blocks, and they stick to it regardless of how the players are responding. It's not designed to be entertaining. It's designed to evaluate under controlled conditions. The scrimmages are where most of the actual evaluation happens. Goaltenders usually get two competitive periods per day, split between the main netminders and the depth options. Forwards and defensemen work in lines that get reshuffled every day. This means you can't simply track one line and call it a season prediction. A forward who dominates scrimmage A might be pulled apart in scrimmage B because the coaching staff deliberately matched him against top-line competition to see how he handles it. There's a specific quirk that catches a lot of people off guard: the Blues run their camp sessions in a staggered format during the first two days. Not everyone skates at the same time. Some groups come in early morning, others come in late afternoon. If you're trying to cover the full camp from start to finish, you need a schedule spreadsheet and you need to update it daily because the practice times shift without public warning. I learned this the hard way in 2022 when I spent an entire morning at the arena with nothing to film because my schedule was outdated by six hours.

The Roster Battle Dynamics You Actually Need to Know

The most interesting part of the Blues Training Camp 2023 wasn't the headline names. It was the fringe players fighting for the last two or three roster spots. That's where the real story lives. The top twenty players on the opening night roster are mostly decided before camp even starts. What's genuinely competitive are the non-roster positions: the fourth-line center, the bottom-pairing defenseman, the backup goaltender, and the emergency call-up slot. I've noticed over several seasons that the coaching staff uses camp to solve specific roster holes rather than to generally assess talent. In 2023, the clear issue was right-shot defense depth. They brought in two right-shot defensemen on tryout contracts specifically to compete for that slot, and they gave them nearly double the ice time of the left-shot tryouts. This isn't a coincidence. It's a deliberate signal about what they're evaluating. When you see that kind of imbalance in ice time distribution, pay attention. It tells you what the management team is worried about heading into the season. Another thing that isn't obvious from the outside: the Blues use a modified point system during camp scrimmages that isn't publicly disclosed. I figured this out by tracking goal credits against the internal notes the assistant coaches pass around. Certain types of goals — odd-man rushes, deflected shots from the slot, power-play markers — are weighted differently in the evaluation framework. Players who only score from breakaways and dump-ins tend to rank lower in the internal standings than players who generate chances through sustained zone time, even if their raw goal totals look worse. This matters because it affects who gets invited back for the pre-season games and who gets sent to Chicago.

Common Mistakes People Make Covering or Attending

Most journalists and fans approach camp with the same flawed assumption: that practice performance translates directly to regular season performance. It doesn't. The sample sizes are tiny, the competitive intensity is artificially controlled, and the coaching staff is deliberately testing edge cases that wouldn't come up in an actual game. I've seen players who looked phenomenal in camp get dropped after two pre-season games, and I've seen players who looked average in camp become legitimate contributors by December. Another mistake is over-indexing on the scoring leaders in camp scrimmages. The Blues run too many unbalanced line combinations during camp for individual scoring to mean anything meaningful. A forward might lead the camp in points because he's been paired with a top-nine center who creates high-danger chances for him. That doesn't mean the forward is ready for a bigger role. It means the system is working exactly as designed: create favorable matchups and see who capitalizes. For people attending in person, the biggest practical problem is the seating. The main rink at World Arena has very limited press seating — maybe thirty to forty spots total — and the rest of the media stands on the upper concourse or in a designated area near the penalty box. From the upper level, you can't hear the coaching instructions, and the audio quality for video recording is poor. If you're serious about capturing practice footage, bring a telephoto lens and plan your positions around the blue line areas, not the center ice sections. I use a 70-200mm f/2.8 for camp work, and it's been reliable for over a decade of coverage.

The Evaluation System Behind the Scenes

The Blues use a combination of traditional scouting reports and advanced metrics during camp. The advanced metrics come from the video review system, which tracks possession time, shot generation quality, and zone entries for every player on the ice. These numbers feed directly into the final roster decisions. What most outsiders don't realize is that the advanced metrics carry more weight than the eyes-only evaluation in certain situations. I've observed cases where a player who looked solid in practice had poor underlying possession numbers, and the coaching staff removed him from the final roster based primarily on that data. The goaltender evaluation is particularly methodical. Each netminder gets a standardized set of shots from the same designated spots, recorded from multiple camera angles. The save percentage from these controlled drills matters less than the rebound control and positioning efficiency. I've reviewed the data from multiple camps, and the goalies who perform well in controlled scenarios but poorly in live scrimmage situations are the ones who tend to get cut first. The staff wants goalies who can handle chaos, not just shot blockers.

What to Expect After the Final Cut

Once the final roster is announced, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday before the season opener, the remaining players get assigned to the American Hockey League affiliate in Chicago. The call-up process is automatic unless a player is waived or released. I've found that tracking which players get designated for assignment versus which ones make the NHL roster is the single most useful predictive tool for understanding the Blues' season outlook. Players who survive camp and then get sent down to Chicago without drama are usually healthy development prospects. Players who get waived or released during camp are typically organizations trying to avoid paying out the remainder of their contract. The Blues Training Camp 2023 followed this exact pattern. The roster moves in September are mostly about managing salary cap space and developing young players. If you're following this for fantasy hockey or betting purposes, the camp performance data has very limited predictive value. The real signals are in the roster construction decisions and the coaching staff's stated philosophy for the upcoming season.

Practical Tips That Actually Help

Download the official NHL app before you go. The practice schedules, scrimmage lineups, and roster updates get posted there first, often twenty minutes before any other source. This matters because the scrimmage lineups change daily, and the only way to know who's skating in which session is through the app or the press box. I rely on the app for lineup verification, and it's saved me from sitting through entire sessions with nothing to cover. If you're attending as a fan, arrive at least forty-five minutes before the scheduled start time. The security screening at World Arena takes longer than expected, and the concourse food options are limited during camp. There's usually a queue at the hot dog stand that takes twenty minutes on its own. I've missed the opening faceoff twice because I underestimated the parking situation. For media members, bring backup batteries and extra memory cards. The cold arena temperatures drain camera batteries faster than you'd expect. I go through three full battery cycles per practice session, and if I'm not rotating them, I end up missing key moments because my primary battery died mid-drill. This happened to me in January during a regular season game, and I made sure to bring extras for every camp session since then.

There's also a small but important detail about the press conference room: it fills up fast when the head coach holds a post-camp media availability. If you want a front-row seat for the Q&A session, you need to claim it at least thirty minutes before the scheduled time. The first two rows are reserved for beat writers and team-media relations staff, and the rest of the room is general admission. I've seen people cut in line, and the staff doesn't always enforce the seating order strictly. Don't leave your notebook and pen unattended while you grab food.

When the System Fails

I want to be clear about something: training camp does not reliably predict regular season outcomes. I've covered enough camps to know that the evaluation process is designed for roster construction, not performance forecasting. The conditions are artificial, the sample sizes are small, and the coaching staff is making decisions based on short-term needs rather than long-term projections. If someone tells you that a player's camp performance proves he'll be a star this season, they don't understand what they're watching. There are also logistical failures that happen regularly. The shuttle buses between the practice facility and the hotel district run on a schedule that's often inaccurate, and the WiFi in the press area is unreliable during peak usage times. I've had to edit and file stories from my phone because the press room internet dropped during a critical deadline. This isn't a rare occurrence. Plan for it. The most frustrating aspect of camp coverage is the lack of transparency around injury information. Players who are day-to-day with minor injuries are often listed as "healthy" in the official release until the last possible moment. I've prepared stories about players who turned out to be scratched for precautionary reasons, and I've missed stories about players who were quietly dealing with lingering issues. The org communicates injury status selectively, and that's their prerogative, but it makes accurate reporting significantly harder.

If you're looking for a more reliable source of information about the Blues roster construction and player development, the AHL affiliate's practice sessions offer better visibility into how players are actually progressing. The coaching philosophies are consistent between the NHL and AHL levels, and the evaluation criteria are the same. The difference is that AHL practices have more open media access and fewer scheduling surprises. I cover both circuits, and I find the AHL camp experience to be more transparent and equally valuable for understanding roster decisions. The Blues Training Camp 2023 followed the same patterns as every camp before it. The evaluation framework is well-established, the media access is manageable if you prepare properly, and the on-ice product is useful primarily for understanding roster construction rather than performance forecasting. The people who get the most out of it are those who treat it as a staffing exercise rather than a preview of the season ahead.