As the NHL season is now complete and the playoffs are here, the St. Louis Blues have missed the playoffs for the third time in the last four seasons. Their late season heroics after the Olympic break wasn’t enough as they came within four points of the last wildcard spot in the Western Conference. Overall, the organization and the players and staff above would still view this season as a failure with feelings of frustration, anger, and questioning to go along with it.
The Blues were looking to build off of where they left off last season, as a familiar season unfolded with the team playing some amazing hockey after the Four Nations break, getting them into the playoffs and sending the series against the President’s Trophy winners, the Winnipeg Jets, to game seven, and coming within 1.6 seconds of advancing, but we all know what happened there. That is just putting things into perspective with the goal this season to build on that, but that wasn’t the case in the end.
The 2025-2026 season for the St. Louis Blues was a rollercoaster to say the least, marked by periods of intense play and unexpected challenges.
Early on this season, the team showed flashes of brilliance with key players stepping up and demonstrating strong offensive and defensive abilities. The Blues struggled a lot to find consistency, facing tough competition in their division and for the majority of this time, finding themselves on the wrong side of close games and continuing to drop valuable points. Along with this, the Blues team suffered a lot of injuries, in which many were key players, and that called for younger players to come in and adapt to the NHL and remain competitive through the rest of the regular season.
Even with all the adversity and challenges the Blues had faced up to this point, the goal now shifted to be a competitive hockey club the rest of the way.
As the trade deadline concluded, the Blues GM Doug Armstrong made two huge trades, trading captain Brayden Schenn to the New York Islanders for Jonathan Drouin, Marcus Gidlof, and a third and first round pick in the 2026 NHL draft, along with trading assistant captain Justin Faulk to the Detroit Red Wings for Justin Holl, Dmitri Buchelnikov, a third round pick (from the San Jose Sharks), and a first round pick in the 2026 NHL draft. The Blues now have three first round picks at the upcoming draft this summer.
Along with last season, there was a break in the season mid-February with the 2026 Winter Olympics taking place, and last year the newly introduced Four Nations Face Off tournament. The Blues finally had a time to reset and get away from the game of hockey after the abysmal season up to this point.After the Blues came back from the two-week break, expectations had shifted from where they were at the beginning of the season, with desire to make the playoffs and go further than the previous year, to being competitive and giving young players time at the NHL level, that they possibly wouldn’t have gotten had the team been fighting for a playoff spot.
To draw to conclusion with the Blues having a very young team with many rookies up for their first times in the league, they turned on the burners and didn’t look back from being so far out of the playoffs to getting right into the mix of it with the team playing meaningful games again. The Blues got themselves right into the mix of the playoff push in the final weeks of the season. Ultimately, the challenge was just too much to overcome in an 82-game season and the start the Blues had, they finished the season above .500, at .524, with 86 points and a record of 37-33-12, missing the playoffs by four points.
There are definitely positives to take from this season and hoping to build upon into next season with the offensive first line being the best in the league for the final 30 games of the season. If they can find ways to play together like they did for a full season staying healthy and producing as much as they did down the stretch this season, the team will be far more off the front foot and it make it easier for other lines. The first line in Snuggerud-Thomas-Holloway was the best line in hockey for the last two months of the season. The young players who came up played exceptionally well, and can build upon for a long time to come. Knowing how young the Blues core is, it is very positive for their age and for what they’ll be able to do in the NHL for a long time to come.
Lastly, the organization and staff, with the head coach Jim Montgomery, starting this upcoming year our new GM will be former Blue Alexander Steen with current GM of 22 years Doug Armstrong taking up a higher role in the organization and finally the support that we have from head chairman Tom Stillman and the Stillman family.
Overall, this season was definitely disappointing but the way the team finished this season is something to look forward to and hopefully build on and find the pieces needed this offseason via the draft, trades, and free agency. The ultimate goal for next season is to have a consistent regular season and find a way to start the season and opening months on the strong foot and ultimately get back into the postseason and compete for the Stanley Cup.
