{"id":557947,"date":"2026-04-22T12:54:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557947\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:54:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:54:37","slug":"blues-2025-26-performance-proved-they-were-never-true-contenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557947\/","title":{"rendered":"Blues\u2019 2025-26 performance proved they were never true contenders"},"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 have a big summer ahead of them. Well, the same could have been said for this past summer before the 2025-26 season, but it obviously did not pan out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\">What was just on display since October is nothing more than a case of false identity. That surprise playoff appearance and near first-round knockout of Winnipeg was nothing more than luck.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">This team is not contender material, and here is why? Plus, here is how that can change in 2026-27.<\/p>\n<p>New culture\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5z\">This Blues core is about to take a serious hit this summer. Going forward, the emphasis is going to be on the youth leading the charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"62\">That includes Jimmy Snuggerud, Dalibor Dvorsky, and Philip Broberg. Following their lead will be some of the three first-round draft picks in the upcoming draft, Justin Cabonneau and Adam Jiricek.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"65\">There has to be this kind of change, as what has been on display for the last two seasons is not working. The surprise playoff appearance did not do this team any favors, as it was all wasted this past season. Since October, this team showed its true colors and unfortunately, they were not playoff material. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"68\">Next season might not be a complete turnaround, but the hope is that it should be a step forward and <a href=\"https:\/\/bleedinblue.com\/three-reasons-why-the-2025-26-season-was-a-failure-for-the-st-louis-blues-01kpmaqst2kj\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">not backward<\/a>. The pieces are there, and this upcoming draft could have at least one of their first round picks become an NHL-ready player by this upcoming October. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6b\">It is not enough to say that this previous season was a waste, but it was rotten. <\/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 have a big summer ahead of them. Well, the same could have been said&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557948,"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-557947","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\/116448465733555859","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557947","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=557947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}