The Blues didn’t exactly breeze through the week, but they did at least leave it on a better note. At 2-2-1 through five games, St. Louis is still early in the season grind, and the bigger concern right now is how quickly the injury list keeps expanding.
That problem isn’t limited to St. Louis, either. The NHL is dealing with a bruising start to the 2026-27 season across the board, and the goaltending market has already become part of the conversation.
Jordan Binnington found himself right in the middle of that noise before the Blues beat Columbus. He had been skating on shaky ground, and when he allowed two early goals in that game, the speculation about his future with the franchise only got louder. With Igor Shesterkin landing on LTIR for the New York Rangers, the idea of a team taking a swing on Binnington in a thin goalie market suddenly looked a lot more realistic.
The injury situation in St. Louis also took another hit when Dillon Dube was moved to injured reserve after scoring his first goal as a Blue. The neck injury came after he took a hard shot in the corner against San Jose, just before that milestone goal.
NEWS: #stlblues F Dillon Dube will miss 8 weeks after suffering a neck injury Thursday vs #SJSharks. pic.twitter.com/97bC1RwF9K
- NHL News (@PuckReportNHL) October 10, 2026
Dube is scheduled to be checked again in eight weeks, and his absence opens the door for Dylan Peterson to try to make his mark in the lineup.
There was at least some encouraging offensive life in the latest win. The Blues’ top line had been quiet through the first five games, with Robert Thomas, Dylan Holloway, and Jimmy Snuggerud all under pressure to deliver more.
Against Columbus, though, that group finally started to click. Holloway piled up three assists, and Snuggerud buried two goals.
That kind of production has been missing, so it gave St. Louis something to build on. The test comes quickly again, with Ottawa next on the schedule.
Around the league, the injury list kept growing. Shesterkin is done for the season with the Rangers.
Anaheim’s Cutter Gauthier is out with an upper-body injury. And Seattle delivered one of the more alarming reports imaginable, announcing that Jacob Melanson is sidelined after suffering an anterior mediastinum hematoma with a vascular pseudo-aneurysm.
In Other News...
Blues Needed A Spark And These Young Players Finally Delivered
The Blues spent much of the week looking for a jolt after back-to-back losses to Chicago and San Jose, a rough stretch that made their comeback win over Columbus feel all the more important. In a season where every answer seems to come with a new question, the spotlight landed on a few younger pieces, with Mason McTavish and Joel Hofer among the names helping steady things when the schedule started to tilt the wrong way.
Dylan Holloway was part of that push, and Jimmy Snuggerud stood out even more in the evaluation of the week. Snuggerud emerged as the Blues top performer over the stretch, a timely development for a team that badly needed someone to provide a spark and change the tone after a frustrating start to the week. [Read more 🡒]
Former Avs Assistant Leaves Colorado With One Big Question For Bednar
Dave Hakstols time with the Colorado Avalanche appears to be ending almost as quickly as it began, with the former NHL coach expected to take over at Arizona State University. Colorado has given him permission to work through the transition, and theres a real chance he could be behind the bench for the Sun Devils next game. For a staff that has valued continuity and structure, it is one more notable change around a program that has already had to adjust on the fly.
The opening at Arizona State comes in the wake of the school moving on from Greg Powers amid an investigation tied to a player injury incident involving Matthew Mayich. That backdrop gives Hakstols arrival a different kind of urgency, since he is stepping into a job under scrutiny and with immediate expectations attached. For the Avalanche, the bigger question is not whether the move makes sense for Arizona State, but how quickly Colorado can absorb the loss of an assistant it only recently added. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Suddenly Have A Center Question Fans Cant Ignore
The Red Wings search for center help has become impossible to ignore, and it is the kind of roster question that can reshape the rest of an offseason. With Detroit weighing whether to move Simon Edvinsson or Dylan Larkin in a deal, the focus has shifted to who could come back the other way and stabilize the middle of the ice for a team trying to sort out its long-term lineup.
One wrinkle in the broader market is that the teams circling around those kinds of moves are not operating in a vacuum. The Rangers are also looking for answers after losing Igor Shesterkin for the season, and that ripple effect can change which names are available and how willing clubs are to listen. For Detroit, the challenge is finding the right center target before the market tightens even further. [Read more 🡒]