The St. Louis Blues are getting set to officially start their 2025-26 campaign on Thursday night, hosting the Minnesota Wild. There will be some first-timers, and many players from last season returning.
One of the big returns is head coach Jim Montgomery, who has a special case of actually being a first-timer himself. Despite coaching the Blues to a 35-18-7 record over his 60-game tenure after being hired on November 24 to replace Drew Banister, this is his first full offseason to prepare with his new franchise.
After a very successful tenure with Boston over three seasons, he now has even higher expectations than he did before with St. Louis.
Can he live up to them and motivate this team to new heights in 2025-26?
Bringing the Blues back to the playoffs
The Blues have a chance to capitalize on all of the success gained from last season's unexpected playoff appearance. With Montgomery at the helm once again, the notion is that this team should be even better in 2025-26. All eyes are on Montgomery to push this team to new heights, as the momentum is in their favor.
The Central Division has gotten stronger since last season, and the Western Conference is still as wild. There is no clear-cut winner for the division just yet, as it could be just about anyone. Even Chicago looked like a solid hockey team in their opening game against the back-to-back champs, Florida.
St. Louis is going to have their hands full, and from the veteran leadership to the young up-and-comers, Montgomery is going to have to use his Jack Adams award-winning wisdom. When this team was on the brink of being on the outside looking in at the 4 Nations Faceoff, Montgomery was a driving force in buying into the present players at hand, and not exploring the trade deadline for additional help. That also sparked a franchise-record 12-straight wins.
If there is one coach in the NHL to bring this team back to the contender category, it is Montgomery.