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 captured with their incredible run after the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Calgary will be back in St. Louis Tuesday night, 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, however, has carried from the end of the 2024-25 season:
The Blues won 12 consecutive home games last season. They are 2-4-3 at home this season.
In 26 regular-season games following the 4 Nations tournament last season, top-six forwards Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Dylan Holloway, Pavel Buchnevich and Brayden Schenn combined for 130 points (47 goals, 83 assists). In 16 games this season, they have 38 (14 goals, 24 assists).
In the same 26 games following the 4 Nations, goaltenders Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer teamed up 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. There have been many other storylines, such as slow starts, sluggish second periods and a penalty-kill unit with a lot of problems.
It’s hard to fathom how far the Blues have fallen, and even Montgomery recently admitted that he expected more carry-over from ’24-25.
“Yes, I did,” he said. “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.”
With just one winning streak (two games) and a seven-game winless skid (0-5-2), there have been no indications of that augmentation, and with each debilitating 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 will be stepping down as GM after the season and giving way to Alexander Steen (though Armstrong will be staying with the organization in his role as the 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 a core group of players who helped the Blues contend for a playoff spot every season. 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 very 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 more evident that even with the hiring of Montgomery, the additions of Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, and the signing of Pius Suter, the Blues still just don’t have the make-up of a resilient team that can continue carrying the franchise until those top draft picks are ready.
The current core group that’s been around for awhile — 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 and 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 (6) than he had goals in last season’s stretch run (7). (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. Joel Hofer, who got a new two-year, $6.8 million deal last summer, has struggled in net. Cam Fowler, who signed a three-year, $18.3 million contract extension after coming over from the Anaheim Ducks, has been quiet on the blue line.
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.
The Blues have nine players who have some form of trade protection in the current season of their contract: Kyrou, Thomas, Buchnevich, Parayko, Schenn, Faulk, Fowler, Binnington and Torey Krug, who’s on long-term injured reserve (LTIR).
Kyrou, Thomas, Buchnevich and Parayko each have full no-trade clauses, which means the team would need their approval to make a deal. Schenn, Faulk, Fowler and Binnington can provide a modified list of clubs to which they can’t be dealt, so the Blues do have some flexibility with them.
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
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 the past few seasons, too, and made no significant subtractions from his roster, so it can also be seen as a way to try 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 again, 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 let the Blues know he wanted to stay in St. Louis. But with the season going the way it has, 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? Yes, 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 NHL trade deadline March 6. The Blues have put themselves in a situation where they may know what they want to do, while other teams are settling into the season and aren’t sure yet what kind of moves they want to make. It makes it even more complicated when we’re talking about players with terms left on their contracts.
Then, there’s this: 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 such as 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 overall.
What would it mean for the trajectory of the organization?
If the Blues indeed 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 overall pick last June, is already 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 first-line centers who are currently among the league’s top five in scoring.
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 University this season, and with four goals and 14 points in 12 games, his start with the Nittany Lions has shown why his skill could make him the next No. 1 overall pick.
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, and doesn’t include the fact that the team may 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? What if the Blues made a legitimate effort to compete for a playoff spot, which they still hope to be the case, and it unexpectedly turned into a season in which they suddenly found themselves in the McKenna sweepstakes? 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, with the NHL’s salary cap projected to go up to $104 million in 2026-27, they have about $25 million in space to help with the roster.
This is not what’s on the mind of Montgomery and his players at the moment. While they’ve absorbed some tough blows lately, they’ve earned points in three of their last four games, four of their last 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.