The St. Louis Blues had a lackluster season, but did find some bit of emergence from a few players. They might have found their future leader, after trading away their captain at the trade deadline.
Jake Neighbours enjoyed a nice breakout campaign in 2025-26, and was one of the players that catapulted their importance in this franchise's future. Let's give him a grade for the year.
Expectations for 2025-26
The 2024-25 season saw No. 63 hit some new career-highs in assists and points, and nearly matching his goal record. With 22 goals, 24 assists for 46 points, it was a standout year for Neighbours.
He was expected to continue to trend upwards in 2025-26, and for the most part he did do that. Neighbours did not set any career-highs, but it was what was on the eye-test that truly told the story.
Grade: B
Neighbours earnd a solid B for his performance in 2025-26, and here is why. He had 15 goals and 21 assists on the season for 36 points, but did miss a good chunk of time during the season. With only 69 games played, the Blues sorely missed him for this 13 games.
When Brayden Schenn was traded, that opened up a captaincy spot. Until someone is named as the captain, the Blues expanded on their Alternates, and gave Neighbours an "A" on his chest.
Neighbours continued to pound the opponent last season, and showed some excellent flashes of offensive ability with a career-best CorsiFor% of 53.7.
Where does he go from here?
From here, the 24-year-old will have a lot opporuntity in front of him. Head coach Jim Montgomery is very high on him and his ability to become a future leader, hence the "A".
One day soon, we could be seeing that "A" swap to a "C", and the Blues fanbase can certainly get behind that.
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