The St. Louis Blues are living in a narrow band of possibility heading into 2026-27. Their floor is ugly, their ceiling is limited, and the truth probably sits somewhere in the middle.
Last season, they missed a Western Conference wild-card berth by only a few points after a late push, and the biggest reason they fell short was goaltending. Jordan Binnington had one of the worst seasons of his career, while Joel Hofer didn’t settle in until after the Winter Olympics. Even with that late surge, the Blues still finished on the outside looking in.
This summer brought a busy stretch for the front office, with the work split between the tenures of Doug Armstrong and Alex Steen. The roster got a flurry of changes, but whether those moves were enough to lift St. Louis out of the league’s mushy middle is still very much up for debate.
At the very top end, the Blues have a path to being a dangerous team if just about everything breaks right. Mason McTavish would have to become a true second-line center.
Connor McMichael would need to bounce back. Hofer would need to keep rolling after his late-season turnaround.
And the team would have to stay healthy, especially Dylan Holloway and Robert Thomas, who are the two main offensive drivers. If young players such as Jimmy Snuggerud and Dalibor Dvorsky also take meaningful steps forward, St.
Louis could look a lot more imposing.
But that version of the Blues asks for a lot. They also play in what is described as the most top-heavy division in hockey, with the Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, and Minnesota Wild sitting in a class of their own.
Even if everything clicks, St. Louis still looks more like a wild-card hunter than a true division threat.
The danger, of course, is that the season goes the other way.
We saw enough of that last year to know how quickly things can unravel. Thomas missed several games.
Jordan Kyrou dropped off sharply. The goaltending was brutal.
The defense was only mediocre. Kyrou may be gone now, but if McMichael and McTavish don’t find their game, the offense could have real trouble.
If Logan Mailloux, Dvorsky, Snuggerud, and the other young pieces stall, the veterans would be pushed into jobs they may not be able to carry anymore, and the depth chart would start to look thin in a hurry.
That kind of early-season slide is not some abstract fear. The Blues have already lived through it twice in a row.
In 2024-25, they recovered early enough to sneak into the playoffs and came close to knocking out the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets in the first round. In 2025-26, the rebound after the Olympics came too late to matter.
If they start slowly for a third straight year, the bigger question becomes whether this group really has the ingredients to contend for a Stanley Cup.
Most likely, though, the Blues end up somewhere in between. They are not built to collapse completely, but they also don’t look strong enough on paper to go stride for stride with the league’s elite. That said, they may not need to be that good to grab a wild-card spot.
The Central Division’s top three teams appear positioned to hold their ground unless injuries throw everything off. That probably leaves St. Louis on the outside of those three automatic playoff spots.
The Pacific Division, meanwhile, opens a door. It’s described as a joke, with no team looking like a serious wild-card force.
That means the Blues’ real competition should come from their own division. Nashville Predators have improved enough to be in the mix, Utah Mammoth could factor in as well, and a bounce-back from the Jets would make the race even tighter.
So that’s the Blues’ realistic ceiling: a bubble playoff team. If they were in the Pacific, the picture might look different.
But they’re not, and the division around them is loaded with three of the NHL’s best teams. A few good breaks, and St.
Louis is back in the postseason. A few bad ones, and it’s another lottery-level year.
In Other News...
Cam Fowler Enters A Crucial Season With Plenty On The Line
Cam Fowler arrived in St. Louis two seasons ago after a long run in Anaheim, and for a while the fit looked clean enough. He brought experience, steadiness and some early production to the Blues blue line, the kind of veteran presence a team can use while trying to sort out its defensive mix. But his play dipped in the 2025-26 season, and now he enters the next one with a lot more scrutiny attached to his name than he had when he first joined the club.
The pressure is only heightened by the change upstairs, with Alexander Steen now in charge and a new contract already on the books for Fowler. The Blues also have younger defensemen pushing for larger roles, which makes Fowlers start to the season especially important as the team sorts out potential pairings and decides how much trust to place in a player whose standing has shifted from reliable addition to a more complicated call. [Read more 🡒]
Joel Hofer Is Giving The Blues A Reason To Believe Again
Joel Hofers rise gave the Blues something they have been searching for at the most important position on the ice: stability. In his first full run as the primary goaltender in 2025-26, he finished 24-13-5 with a 2.61 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage, numbers that backed up the eye test for a team that needed steady play in net night after night.
The case for Hofer goes beyond the basics, too. He posted six shutouts, graded well in the advanced metrics and ranked highly in Goals Saved Above Average, which suggests the Blues may not just have found a serviceable starter, but a goaltender whose ceiling is still climbing. Given the way he has developed through junior and AHL stops, there is a growing sense around the organization that this season might be the start of something bigger. [Read more 🡒]