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St. Louis Blues 2025 First-Round Pick Justin Carbonneau Wants To Crash The NHL Party; Can He?
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- St. Louis Blues 2025 First-Round Pick Justin Carbonneau Wants To Crash The NHL Party; Can He?
ST. LOUIS -- Justin Carbonneau has a full understanding that the forward group for the St. Louis Blues heading into 2026-27 is a crowded room.
It makes no difference to the first-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, selected No. 19 overall by the Blues .
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There's always someone that would love to crash the party.
Why not Carbonneau?
"My mindset is I want to play in the NHL next year. It doesn't mean I'm going to play, but it's a mindset of everything I want to do in training camp is to play," Carbonneau said recently while attending development camp. "If I step into a gym, it's because I want to play in the NHL. If I want to go on the ice in a 1-on-1 battle, I play games to show I want to be there and I want to be with the Blues. At the end, it's not my decision, but I'm going to do everything I can to force their hands."
Despite the odds against him and more that favorable that the 19-year-old will start in Springfield of the American Hockey League after finishing with the Thunderbirds in the Calder Cup playoffs last season, it's the kind of mindset the Blues want to hear from one of their most recent first-round picks.
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There's nothing left for the 6-foot-1, 203-pound right wing to prove after going back to Blainville-Boisbriand of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League in search of a championship at that level last season.
The Armada fell short of winning a QMJHL title and opportunity compete for the Memorial Cup, which was Carbonneau's objective all along after making the decision of going back to junior instead of the collegiate route to Boston College.
Carbonneau followed up his 89-point season (46 goals, 43 assists) and plus-3 in 2024-25 with 80 points this past season (51 goals, 29 assists) and plus-31 and another 20 points (nine goals, 11 assists) in 17 games in the postseason prior to joining the Thunderbirds, where he played in three playoff games.
If he had to write his own script, there would have been no appearance in the AHL because that meant that the Armada went deeper into the postseason, but from a personal level, the progressive steps were beneficial.
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"From a personal point, yes, but in the end for me, it was not the year I expected because I did not win," Carbonneau said. "I think it's all about that, whether I score 100 goals, but we lose in the (semifinals). It's not what I want. I think it's learning, you learn through that. There's a few things that I would have liked to have done better, but it's just about keep learning."
And what did he learn in his brief stint in Springfield?
"I think every detail matters," Carbonneau said. "There's not a lot of mistakes there. It plays fast, it plays hard. It's just about getting that mindset and being ready to go every single night and every shift."
From his 2024-25 season to this one, Carbonneau wanted to take progressive steps in learning what it will take to be successful in the NHL, and it included something coaches at this level speak of all the time: a 200-foot game.
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"There's always steps I can take, but I think the difference between this year and last year was more the points I had, the goals, the chances I created was more with the way that I played," Carbonneau said. "Sometimes my draft year I felt that I wasn't playing the 200 feet game. Sometimes I still got a goal or I still got chances, but I don't think that's the pro game. This year I played the right way and I learned to play a 200-feet game and I got rewarded, so it's that's a good thing.
"I saw it in Springfield. Every detail matters. You can't take one shift off. When I spoke with 'Dags' [former Blue and current development coach Matt D'Agostini] when I thought I had a good game, I didn't. Not because I played good, it's just he always wanted to keep me hungry and always wanting to be better and better and it worked.
"... With 'Dags,' it's always never too high, never too low. When I had a bad game, I thought 'Dags' would tell me all the things I could have done better, but instead, he told me the things I did good and I need to repeat. And he knows I'm hard on myself too. When you play a good game, that's when he needs to say I played good but what I can do better."
Carbonneau, who scored 128 goals the past three seasons with the Armada, will have to battle with 13 forwards under contract, including Jimmy Snuggerud and Dalibor Dvorsky, who are on their entry-level deals, along with restricted free agent Connor McMichael, who will sign his contract with the Blues at some point. And there's also Oskar Sundqvist , who re-signed a one-year, two-way contract on Friday as insurance , not to mention Otto Stenberg and Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, who are knocking on the door of permanent NHL status.
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But he's prepared for what's to come.
"I've learned a lot," Carbonneau said. "When you get drafted, you know you're a good player, but once you meet the development staff, management and you practice and you play with the players around you at camp, you see how much better you can get and potentially you can have with the resources here. For me this year, it was really exciting because I worked with 'Dags,' Chris [Thorburn] and all of the people around with the staff with Ray [Barile] and the staff, everyone supporting me this year. It's great to have them.
"Every summer, I get to the summer and there's always different things I want to work on. When you're young, it's about getting bigger and getting faster, whatever. But every summer and I sit down, I note some things. I talk with St. Louis, my coaches, everyone around me. It's all little details that can make me better. I just wrote that down and I try and work as much as I can this summer.
"There's always room for growth. Every summer I got better physically. Last year was challenging a bit. I wasn't 100 percent, but now this summer with my trainer in Quebec, I'm going to train in St. Louis in August, it's a good summer ahead because I'm close to being 100 percent; I'm probably 100 percent. Being back to train doing what I love is incredible."
(KHL/CSKA Moskva)
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