ST. LOUIS — Last January, the St. Louis Blues hosted the Calgary Flames for a rare twofer of home games at Enterprise Center. The Flames held the No. 2 wild-card spot in the Western Conference playoff race, and the Blues were five points back.
Jim Montgomery’s team answered with two resounding wins to stay within reach of a playoff spot, which they eventually captured with an incredible run after the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Calgary will be back in St. Louis on Tuesday, and the landscape looks a lot different.
The Blues are second-to-last in the NHL standings with 13 points, and if not for the Flames (10 points), they’d be in the cellar. Even if you’re not an optimist who felt they could contend for a top spot in the Central Division this season, few — if any — would’ve predicted they’d be sitting near the bottom of the league in mid-November.
Nothing has carried from the end of the 2024-25 season, though:
• The Blues won 12 consecutive home games last season. They are 2-4-3 at home this season.
• In 26 regular-season games following 4 Nations, top-six forwards Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Dylan Holloway, Pavel Buchnevich and Brayden Schenn combined for 47 goals and 130 points. In 16 games this season, they have 14 and 38.
• In the same 26 games following 4 Nations, Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer combined for a .920 save percentage, which ranked No. 9 in the NHL in that span. Through 16 games this season, they have an .883 save percentage, which is fourth-worst in the league.
This is just scratching the surface on the Blues’ perilous position. Slow starts, sluggish second periods and a problematic penalty kill are among the other storylines.
It’s hard to fathom how far the Blues have fallen, and even Montgomery recently admitted that he expected more carryover from ’24-25.
“I thought that the work ethic, the communication that was happening on the ice player-to-player, the confidence on the ice, the confidence in the room as far as how we’re going about our business, would be a little bit augmented from what we’ve seen so far,” he said.
With just one winning streak (two games) and a seven-game skid (0-5-2), there have been no indications of that augmentation, and with each defeat — take your pick from a blown four-goal lead in Detroit or a last-second loss against Seattle — it’s getting more difficult to believe any improvement is coming without changes. Not impossible, as we’ve learned with the Blues in recent years, but more difficult to believe.
If a move is made, it won’t be with general manager Doug Armstrong, who’s already announced he’s stepping down as GM after the season and giving way to Alexander Steen (though Armstrong will be staying as president of hockey operations). It won’t be with Montgomery, who signed a five-year contract when he was hired last November.
It will have to be with the roster.
For years, Armstrong has successfully built core groups of players who helped the Blues contend for the playoffs. Meanwhile, he had a sub-core coming up the ranks — first it was Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz, then it was Thomas and Kyrou — so there was always someone to take over with little drop-off. When the club got to the point where it could win a Stanley Cup, he traded for Ryan O’Reilly and signed David Perron, Tyler Bozak and Pat Maroon — and, of course, it worked in 2019.
But as Armstrong attempts to usher in the next sub-core, featuring Jimmy Snuggerud and Dalibor Dvorsky, it’s become evident that even with the hiring of Montgomery, the additions of Holloway and Philip Broberg, and the signing of Pius Suter, the Blues aren’t a resilient team with a core that can carry the franchise until those top draft picks are ready.
The current core — Schenn, Thomas, Kyrou, Buchnevich, Binnington, Oskar Sundqvist, Colton Parayko and Justin Faulk — has come into question. A few are players in their prime who were paid in advance to produce. A few are aging veterans on long-term contracts whose best years are behind them. But the bottom line is it’s not working.
Captain Brayden Schenn has fewer points in 16 games (six) than he had goals in last season’s stretch run (seven). (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
To be clear, it’s not just them. Holloway, a pending restricted free agent who will be handsomely paid soon, hasn’t been himself, regardless of whether it’s because he’s coming off a significant surgery. Hofer, who got a two-year, $6.8 million deal last summer, has struggled. Cam Fowler, who signed a three-year, $18.3 million contract extension after coming over from the Anaheim Ducks, has been quiet.
But they’ll likely be sticking around, so the focus will be on the core — and with the number of no-trade clauses involved, it could be a challenge.
Here’s a list of Blues players with no-trade protection, along with their average annual value, how many years are left on their deals after 2025-26 and their current NTC status:
Blues’ no-trade clauses
PlayerAgeAAVTermNo-trade?
27
$8.125M
6
Full NTC
26
$8.125M
6
Full NTC
30
$8M
5
Full NTC
32
$6.5M
5
Full NTC
34
$6.5M
3
15 teams
33
$6.5M
2
15 teams
33
$4M
4
4 teams
32
$6M
2
14 teams
34
$6.5M
2
15 teams
* Long-term injured reserve
Source: Puckpedia
The Athletic has confirmed a recent report by Frank Seravalli that Armstrong has told GMs that he’s “open for business.” But Armstrong has made that known in plenty of past seasons, too, and made no significant subtractions from his roster, so it can also be seen as a way to motivate his players.
At least one team has inquired on Kyrou, per a league source, after he was made a healthy scratch against the Buffalo Sabres last week. It’s not known if the Blues have any intention of moving Kyrou, who was the subject of trade speculation last summer before his no-trade clause kicked in July 1, or what the club would be asking in return. But he would have to approve any deal.
Schenn is another possibility. The captain attracted a lot of attention at the NHL trade deadline last March and could’ve been dealt, but he told the Blues he wanted to stay. With the season going the way it has, though, Schenn may now entertain the idea, and while his leadership was recently praised by Montgomery, moving on from anyone with trade value may be necessary as part of a bigger overhaul.
How soon, though, would the Blues be willing to pull the plug if that’s the direction they go? We’re only two months into the season, and the team is only five points out of a wild-card spot in the West. But unlike last season, when they were chasing a couple of clubs ahead of them in the standings, they’re looking up at seven teams between them and the second wild card.
Also, we’re still four months away from the March 6 NHL trade deadline. Even if the Blues know what they want to do, other teams are still settling into the season and aren’t sure yet what kind of moves they’ll want to make. It makes it even more complicated when we’re talking about players with term left.
This is the question: Will it be a lost season if the Blues miss the playoffs after their near-upset of the Winnipeg Jets last April?
The simple answer is “yes.”
There were high expectations heading into this season, and even if the Blues didn’t live up to those, making the playoffs a second straight year would have been a positive step. Despite their excruciating first-round exit last season, players like Snuggerud and Jake Neighbours gained valuable experience. And despite another mid-first-round pick in the NHL Draft last summer, forward Justin Carbonneau appears to be a good find at No. 19.
What would it mean for the organization’s trajectory?
If the Blues aren’t in the postseason, the younger players on the roster, including Dvorsky, will have to wait another year. But as far as their first-round draft pick in 2026, that could be much higher, which would be welcome news to a lot of fans.
The New York Islanders’ Matthew Schaefer, who was the No. 1 pick in June, is off to a Calder Trophy-caliber season as a defenseman. Meanwhile, the San Jose Sharks’ Macklin Celebrini (No. 1 in 2024) and Chicago Blackhawks’ Connor Bedard (No. 1 in 2023) are top-line centers and among the league’s top four scorers.
Meet Gavin McKenna, who was No. 1 on Scott Wheeler’s preliminary rankings of the top 64 players in the 2026 Draft. The 17-year-old left winger is playing at Penn State this season and has shown why he’s projected to be the next No. 1.
Would the arrival of McKenna or one of Wheeler’s other projected top-five picks offset a down season in St. Louis, along with missed playoff experience and revenue? It would for a lot of fans.
Armstrong has been reluctant to orchestrate a complete rebuild, arguing that stripping the franchise down to the studs for a chance to pick a player who might make a difference may not be worth the pain. That’s understandable. The current team also might miss out on opportunities like last season. What if the Blues had gotten past Winnipeg? Yeah, they might’ve lost to the Dallas Stars in the second round, but it’s easier to keep the fan base engaged and encouraged when the club is playing into May instead of packing up in April.
But what if it’s an unintended one-off? The Blues made a legitimate effort to compete for a playoff spot, but what if it is unexpectedly turning into a season in which the McKenna sweepstakes is more likely? It’s not that far-fetched, as MoneyPuck currently has their odds of receiving the No. 1 pick (9.9 percent) higher than their odds of making the playoffs (9.5 percent). And according to PuckPedia, they will have about $25 million in cap space next offseason to supplement the roster.
This is not what’s on the mind of Montgomery and his players at the moment. They’ve absorbed some tough blows lately, but they’ve also earned points in three of their past four games, four of their past six and believe the analytics still point in their favor.
But at this point in the season, with how much has changed since Calgary’s last trip to town 11 months ago, it’s not wrong to wonder about the possibilities.