{"id":557594,"date":"2026-04-22T01:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T01:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557594\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T01:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T01:48:15","slug":"the-blues-management-succession-plan-mayve-ruined-the-2025-26-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557594\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blues&#8217; management succession plan may&#8217;ve ruined the 2025-26 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5n\">The St. Louis Blues missed the playoffs this season, finishing with a 37-33-12 record and four points back of a wildcard berth. Many of their <a href=\"https:\/\/bleedinblue.com\/three-blues-that-took-a-major-step-back-this-season-01kppbxkkf8e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">players regressed<\/a>, contributing to the slide from last season&#8217;s near-upset in the first round, and a lot of the blame rests on the players&#8211;but so, too, should the organization be criticized for the decisions they did (and didn&#8217;t) make.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\">The Blues have implemented a succession plan for the front office&#8211;quite possibly the first organization to institute such a thing. Alex Steen is slated to take over from Doug Armstrong as general manager this summer, and he will hopefully guide the Blues back to relevancy.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">That return to relevancy could&#8217;ve happened sooner&#8211;possibly saving the season&#8211;if Armstrong hadn&#8217;t been a lame duck. The succession plan put the organization in an awkward place, and the team paid the price.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5w\">The Blues&#8217; season went off the rails relatively early: they were 9-10-7 by the end of November, and it was clear the team was going to have a difficult path to the postseason in a top heavy Central Division; they&#8217;d have to battle for one of the two Western Conference wildcard berths.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5z\">Instead of trying to salvage the season, Armstrong let the roster flounder. At the helm for 16 years, most other organizations likely would&#8217;ve decided a new voice was necessary, perhaps firing Armstrong before the calendar flipped in an attempt to wake up (or even shake up) the roster. But, with Armstrong&#8217;s replacement already named and primed to take over in the summer, why bother? Just let the season play out.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"62\">Steen is set to take over this summer, and maybe that will get the Blues back on track for next season. We&#8217;re left to speculate, however, if making a front office change a few months ago might&#8217;ve saved the season, and whether or not the succession plan prevented that sort of sweeping change.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow bleedinblue.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=bleedinblue.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Louis Blues missed the playoffs this season, finishing with a 37-33-12 record and four points back&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5120],"tags":[71,5,4,534,84,5285,5284],"class_list":{"0":"post-557594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-blues","8":"tag-blues","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-blues","13":"tag-stlouis","14":"tag-stlouisblues"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116445846795015519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}