Jim Montgomery’s second act with the St. Louis Blues already comes with a deadline attached.
When the Blues brought Montgomery in, it caught plenty of people off guard. Doug Armstrong had just moved on from Craig Berube, handed the job to Drew Bannister, and watched a slow start drag the team down again.
Then Boston fired Montgomery while its own season was going sideways, Armstrong moved quickly, and Bannister was out after only a handful of games. Montgomery stepped in and changed the mood right away.
For a while, it looked like the hire had worked exactly as intended. St. Louis was uneven under Montgomery, but a scorching finish pushed the club into a wildcard spot, and the Blues came within seconds of knocking off the Winnipeg Jets.
Since then, the story has been a lot less flattering.
Last season made Montgomery harder to evaluate than most coaches. The Blues were stuck in the mud for long stretches, and the biggest culprit was shaky goaltending.
Montgomery never seemed to find a clean fix, even though the skaters still had to do their part and the goalies still had to make saves. A coach can push the first part along, but he can’t stand in the crease and stop pucks himself.
That said, the NHL only cares about the final tally, and the final tally was ugly. St.
Louis spent most of the season on the wrong side of the results and missed the playoffs. The team did claw back toward respectability after the Winter Olympics, and maybe Montgomery deserves some credit for that surge, but it didn’t erase how deep the hole had been.
Now the pressure shifts to 2026-27, and it’s not subtle.
The Blues are set to roll out a young, fresh-faced roster with a new leadership core, and Montgomery’s job will be turning that group into a real NHL team. Another sluggish start could make things very uncomfortable very fast. New general manager Alex Steen already has what sounds like one of the coldest front office seats in the league, but a bad opening could also hand him the perfect excuse to put his own stamp on the club.
Montgomery is still a good coach. The problem is timing.
In the NHL, that can be enough to get you pushed out the door. He needs this team clicking right away in 2026-27, or he may be hunting for work by Thanksgiving.
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The Blues right wing pipeline has a real mix of certainty and projection as the organization looks ahead to the 2026-27 season. Justin Carbonneau, Maddox Dagenais, Dmitry Buchelnikov, Lars Steiner and Dylan Peterson give St. Louis a group with different timelines, different skill sets and different levels of polish, which is exactly why this spot in the system has become worth watching. Some of the names are still in development, while others are already pushing toward roles that could matter when the roster starts to turn over.
Carbonneaus scoring jump in junior has put him in the spotlight, and the rest of the group carries its own kind of intrigue, from draft pedigree to the way each player fits the Blues long-term plans. Buchelnikovs path is especially interesting after arriving in the Justin Faulk trade deadline package, while the bigger question for the entire pipeline is which of these right wings can actually become an NHL regular and not just a prospect with promise. [Read more 🡒]
Blues Camp Will Put Early Roster Battles Front And Center
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For St. Louis, the appeal goes beyond the usual camp buzz because this is where the first real clues emerge about how the depth chart might look once the season gets going. The organization is also planning to give the younger players a chance to show what they can do in preseason action against the Dallas Stars on September 19, which should offer another important look at who is ready to push for a spot and who still has work to do. [Read more 🡒]
Blues Camp Opens With A New-Look Core Fans Need To Watch
Training camp is about to put the Blues back on the ice next Thursday, and this one feels different before a puck is even dropped. St. Louis heads into the 2026-27 season with four preseason games on the schedule and a reshaped group of players expected to steer the room, a sign the organization is leaning harder into a younger core as it tries to reset its identity.
Robert Thomas is at the center of that shift, with Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway and Jake Neighbours joining him in the leadership mix. The roster has also been altered by a busy offseason that brought in Mason McTavish, Connor McMichael, Brandon Carlo and Ross Johnston, giving camp plenty of moving parts to sort through before the real evaluations begin. [Read more 🡒]