{"id":560597,"date":"2026-04-27T05:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T05:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/560597\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T05:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T05:57:16","slug":"this-blues-defenseman-was-the-weakest-link-on-the-back-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/560597\/","title":{"rendered":"This Blues defenseman was the weakest link on the back end"},"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 NHL playoffs are well underway, and the St. Louis Blues aren&#8217;t competing. They finished the season 37-33-12 with 86 standings points, and fifth in a stacked Central Division. A lot of things <a href=\"https:\/\/bleedinblue.com\/three-blues-that-took-a-major-step-back-this-season-01kppbxkkf8e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">went wrong<\/a>, from poor goaltending to a <a href=\"https:\/\/bleedinblue.com\/jordan-kyrou-slumped-when-the-team-needed-him-to-be-a-star-01kprd069xfg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lack of scoring from the top of the lineup<\/a>, but the defense group also carries its fair share of the blame&#8211;and Cam Fowler turned in a pretty awful season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\">This isn&#8217;t just about points, either. Fowler put up an adequate four goals and 26 assists for 30 points&#8211;down from last year&#8217;s torrid pace but not awful. However, his minus-11 goal differential was a huge step back from last year&#8217;s plus-19 after he was traded to the Blues. Per Natural Stat Trick, his expected Goals For percentage (xGF%) dropped from 52.75 last year to 48.45 xGF%. That&#8217;s still much better than his last few years in Anaheim (the Ducks were really, truly awful), but not what you need from a your de facto top-pair defenseman.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">That&#8217;s the larger problem with Fowler, too: he&#8217;s 34 years old, and the Blues signed him to a three-year contract extension that carries $6.1-million AAV cap hit and has full no-trade protections through two-thirds of the term. The front office got duped by Fowler&#8217;s outstanding start in St. Louis, and signed him to an extension that looked bad the day it was inked. At his age, Fowler&#8217;s play is far more likely to regress further than it is to bounce back next season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5w\">If this season was a sign of things to come for Fowler, then the Blues are in trouble. Granted, the emergence of Philip Broberg and <a href=\"https:\/\/bleedinblue.com\/logan-mailloux-s-post-olympic-break-resurgence-is-a-lesson-in-patience-01kmncg59zbq\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">improvements in Logan Mailloux&#8217;s game<\/a> could push Fowler down the lineup; less ice time for Fowler means he can get easier matchups and play to his strengths. As the Blues enter their retool (or rebuild), however, Fowler&#8217;s down 2025-26 could be a warning sign that this is just the player he is now.<\/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 NHL playoffs are well underway, and the St. Louis Blues aren&#8217;t competing. They finished the season 37-33-12&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5120],"tags":[71,5,4,534,84,5285,5284],"class_list":{"0":"post-560597","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\/116475137595459987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560597","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=560597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}