When the St. Louis Blues began the 2025-26 season, most fans had high hopes. The previous year's team was coming off a franchise record win streak to gain a playoff spot and had been on the brink of upsetting the Presidents Cup-winning Winnipeg Jets.
Frankly, the Blues should have beaten the Jets. They led the game into the final minutes and only a last-second collapse thwarted their push to the second round.
Many assumed this season would, at worst, see a lateral trajectory or, more likely, an upward trajectory. Given the fact that the roster remained mostly the same, with the addition of some rookies and some health, it seemed within the realm of possibility that the Blues would challenge for a top-three divisional spot.
Unfortunately, through more than half the 2025-26 season, this team has proved the last half of 2024-25 was the exception, not the rule. This year's team has consistently had all the same issues that got Drew Bannister fired and now threaten the safety of Jim Montgomery.
Reality has set in that the core of this team isn't what we thought it would be. The reality is that Doug Armstrong has incredibly tough decisions to make instead of just sitting back and watching his creation flourish in his final year as the team's general manager.
Unfortunately, even if the Blues manage to stay alive and cling to playoff hopes in 2025-26, someone needs to go. It's up to Armstrong to figure out who, find a team willing to take the salary, and also give a current NHL talent back, as well as pull the trigger on something that could be painful.
The most obvious answers to who would be someone like Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, or Pavel Buchnevich. All present quality players to suitors, but all have the same drawbacks.
The drawbacks are obviously the contracts. Thomas and Kyrou have a cap hit of $8.125 million a year. Buchnevich is at $8 million per year. All of them are under contract until 2031.
St. Louis has yet to retain any long-term salary under Armstrong. The only time in recent memory they retained any money was on some of those expiring contracts when the Blues traded off Ryan O'Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko.
It seems unlikely that Armstrong would change his own operating style as well as saddle incoming Alexander Steen with a dead cap hit. That means you have to find a team willing to take on one of those players, the entire contract, and also get a player in return. That's no easy task with how this team is playing.
Thomas does lead the team in points, but 10 goals and 31 points through 41 games played is rather underwhelming when you consider what the true stars of the game are doing. There were whines about Nick Suzuki making the Canadian Olympic team over Thomas, but Suzuki has 14 goals and 48 points in 44 games on a contract of $7.875 million.
When Kyrou got hurt, he was tied for the team lead in goals with eight. 10 days into January, Kyrou has eight goals and 17 points in 35 games. The injury hampered his progress, but his inability to consistently play the style required by coaches is the real problem. As much as I like Kyrou, it's clear he is part of the problem when he's been benched by Craig Berube, Bannister, and Montgomery.
Buchnevich continues to get a pass from the coaching staff because of intangibles that we don't see. I keep hearing about defensive qualities, but the special teams units he is on are ineffective at best, and they keep putting him out there at the end of games in five-on-six situations, and the team is not better for it. The fact that Buchnevich is second on the team with 24 points (8 G, 16 A) is more an indication of how putrid this team's offense has been, as opposed to Buchnevich helping.
We're told that plus/minus isn't always a fair stat, and that's true. However, Buchnevich is minus-12. Brayden Schenn is minus-20. Kyrou is minus-11. Jake Neighbours is minus-14. Dylan Holloway has missed 12 games, and counting, and he's minus-11.
Nobody is really helping this team. Everyone is hurting it.
Even as a self-admitted suck up to the goalies, they've been part of the problem too. Joel Hofer was terrible to start the year. Jordan Binnington has been pretty weak at the tail end of 2025 and hit or miss to start 2026.
Both goalies have bailed this team out more times than any of us have fingers or toes, but they're still human. Teams are smart enough to know the talent they could acquire if the Blues make a move in net, but they're also smart enough to point at the stats when it comes time for discussion about return.
It's hard to demand a quality player in return when both netminders have save percentages well under .900 and goals against near or above three goals per game. Despite Binnington's championship ring, Hofer may be the easier to sell simply because he's played better more recently and has a smaller cap hit.
All of this is to say that Armstrong has a very difficult task in front of him. Don't listen to the loudmouths on social media and fall into this trap that the Blues need to sell it all, because they don't.
They do have to figure out who is the modern version of T.J. Oshie and David Perron. Both were beloved players in the franchise, but had reached a ceiling with that particular version of the Blues, and both the players and team needed a jolt that was achieved with those deals.
Similarly, now, I don't personally want any of the players on this team to go. Yet, I'm struck by the reality that they aren't going to be able to "just play better".
Sadly, this team needs the slap in the face that trading someone like Thomas or Kyrou or a goalie or insert whatever name you want will accomplish. Maybe they can get a good short-term return like Troy Brouwer was for Oshie, while the younger players continue to develop.
This team has talent. What we are seeing is that it isn't as high-end as we hoped. Unless he's paired with a truly elite scorer, Thomas isn't a top-line center on his own in the way the Blues need. He simply can't elevate guys in that way.
Kyrou is capable of scoring 30-40 goals, but he needs the right conditions. At present, those conditions don't exist in St. Louis. For whatever reason, despite their off-ice friendship, he's never clicked with Thomas, so you need another elite playmaker to make it work with Kyrou.
Buchnevich can still bring those intangibles that the coaches see. However, he's become such a head case after the yo-yo move between center and wing and being lied to by the coaching staff that he's a shell of his former self. If someone can take that contract, maybe a change of scenery would do him or the Blues good.
The Blues have always been more than the sum of their parts, even when they won the Stanley Cup. But the top guys were still top guys, and they aren't right now. Even in losing efforts, names like MacKinnon, McDavid, Draisaitl, Ovechkin, and even Bedard and Celebrini find ways to be on the scoresheet almost every night. The Blues too often disappear for long stretches.
I don't have the answers. If and when a big move is made, I'll be honest in that it will make me sad. I don't really want anyone on this team to go.
But I didn't want Oshie to go. I didn't want Perron to go. When it happened, it was a shock to the system, but it was also time.
Doug Armstrong earned his money in those years as he reshaped the team into something that could win in the playoffs. Now, on his way out the door, he has to do it again, and the task may be even more unenviable than in the past.