The Blues opened their 2026-27 regular season with a gauntlet of a three-game road trip visiting Dallas, Colorado, and Chicago. They are heading home with a 1-2-0 record after a little of everything. A shutout win to open their season, a blowout loss, and a late push effort that ultimately fell short. That record is a little mixed, but it certainly says a lot about what this team is right now.
Here are the three things that stood out from the season-opening road trip.
The kids are carrying the offense
Mason McTavish, Dalibor Dvorsky, and Connor McMichael have scored five of the Blues' seven goals of the season. Not Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich, Dylan Holloway, or any of the rest of the top-six forwards on the team. McTavish and Dvorsky each scored two goals, while McTavish won more than 52 percent of his faceoffs, and McMichael finished the opening road trip with a team-leading three points.
The Blues' roster is built around players like Thomas, Holloway, Snuggerud, and Buchnevich to help lead the team's offensive charge. If the Blues are going to find any level of early-season success and get the season rolling the right way, they will need their leadership to find their offensive stride upon returning to the Enterprise Center on Thursday.
Hofer proving he is the future of the Blues' crease
Blues goaltender Joel Hofer is, without a doubt, proving it is his net now in St. Louis. He was sharp in his two outings, stopping 42 of 44 shots for a .955 save percentage and a 1.03 goals-against average.
Looking over expected-goals numbers, which grade how dangerous each shot was, he kept out nearly three more goals than the average NHL goaltender would have on those same chances, with several of them coming after breakdowns in front of him when defenders in front of him had left him exposed.
Second period woes have returned
The Blues were outscored 98-86 in the second period during the 2025-26 season, and it looks like the middle frame is continuing to haunt them. The team has been badly outplayed in the second period in two of their three games. Granted, one of those two games was a 6-0 blowout loss against the Stars, but the numbers are still the numbers.
In Dallas, they managed only 27 percent of the shot attempts in the second period. Against Colorado, they gave up four goals in the middle frame alone.
When the Blues seemed to finally show signs of life with a chance on the power play, they could rarely find shooting lanes, let alone score a goal.
The Blues have only played nine periods of hockey. It is still very early in the season, with more than a chance to correct mistakes, poor decisions, and instill good habits in this team. However, a 12.5% power play is not a formula for success.
Blues Head Coach Jim Montgomery and the rest of the coaching staff will now be tasked with reviewing their mistakes, finding what made them successful against Dallas, and doing what they can to help their players put together a full 60 minutes of play in their home opener Thursday night against the San Jose Sharks. If they cannot begin to find answers, this team could be in for a very long season ahead.
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