State of the Blues a month into the season

We're just over a month into the 2026-27 NHL season, and the St. Louis Blues are off to the perfectly mediocre start that just about everyone predicted from the start of preseason. They have a limited ceiling relative to the other teams in the ultra-competitive Central Division, they're getting awful goaltending from their veteran netminder, and they're getting some godawful puck luck. It all amounts to a 7-7-1 record and 15 points in the standings--sixth in the Central.

While the team is, more or less, meeting expectations (middling as they were), there are a couple reasons that're contributing to a slightly worse start than we might've imagined.

The top players are underperforming

To start the season, Mason McTavish and Connor McMichael were feasting on their matchups, and the trades were looking like coups. Now, however, McTavish has gone five games without a point and is a minus-7; McMichael has one in the last five and is a minus-4. Those two slumping wouldn't be such a big deal if the top line was performing up to its potential but, alas, that is not the case.

Monster game against the Boston Bruins aside, Robert Thomas only has 10 points so far this season; Dylan Holloway isn't much better with 12. Jimmy Snuggerud is at least piling up goals, but what looked like a resurgent season for Pavel Buchnevich has since collapsed. These are the players that're meant to be leading the team--they are here to put up points--and none are doing it at a rate to make up for the depth scoring drying up.

On the backend, Cam Fowler has been borderline unplayable--thank goodness Logan Mailloux will be back soon, as the defense has been shambling along without him. The injury that caused Colton Parayko to miss a game could be a serious issue as well, if he ends up missing time.

We don't even have to talk about Jordan Binnington anymore: he needs a change of scenery as soon as possible.

A lack of answers from the coaches

Another season, another sluggish start for the Blues. Head coach Jim Montgomery joined the team early in the 2024-25 season, and he gave them enough of a new-coach bump to get them into the playoffs as a wildcard team, nearly upsetting the President's Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets. In his first full year, the team started slow again and, despite a hot start after the Winter Olympics, came up short of a playoff berth.

Now, with things going the way they are, one has to wonder if a coaching change could be on the table in the coming weeks. The power play has at least improved slightly to just over 20 percent after an ugly start, good for 19th in the league, and the penalty kill's been the sixth most effective, but 5-on-5 play has stagnated. Montgomery doesn't seem to have a fix for that.

It's not too late for the Blues to turn things around--they've only played 16 games out of 84. Still, when you're staring down some of the top teams in the league ahead of you in the standings, you have to make up ground where you can. They've got to turn the ship around soon, or they'll be right in the mediocre middle as everyone predicted.