The St. Louis Blues made only one move to address their defense this offseason, trading a couple of draft picks for Brandon Carlo from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Carlo is known as a defensive defenseman, but there are reasons to question whether that will be enough to fix a Blues defense group that was mediocre to awful last season.
Carlo, though, is not the key to the Blues' defense: it's Cam Fowler.
The current blue line
Philip Broberg should be the unquestioned No. 1 defenseman of the St. Louis Blues for many years to come: he's got the contract and counting stats to back it up, and at 25 years old is just entering his prime. No question he'll be on the top pair and likely running the first power play unit.
After that, it's murky. Carlo and Colton Parayko aren't known for their offense, so they'll likely act as defensive anchors on the second and third pair in varying capacities. Logan Mailloux really came alive at the end of last season, but trusting him in a top pair role would be risky; the same goes for Theo Lindstein, who's got solid depth potential and should see some sort of rotation on the third pair with Tyler Tucker.
That leaves Fowler, and his Jekyll and Hyde act could make or break the Blues.
Fowler the fulcrum
In the first 51 games Fowler played for St. Louis after coming over from the Anaheim Ducks, he was outstanding, scoring 36 points, averaging nearly 22 minutes of ice time per night, and finishing with a plus-19 goal differential. Then-GM Doug Armstrong was quick to lock him up that summer to a three-year extension that kicked in for the 2026-27 season, betting the Fowler we saw in 2024-25 was the real deal.
Then, the 2025-26 season happened, and the 34-year-old defenseman fell off a cliff. Last year, he only scored 30 points in 82 games, saw his ice time go down, and generally looked the part of a veteran defenseman past his prime--overwhelmed in top-pair minutes. If that's his new normal, the Blues are in trouble, because nobody else on the roster appears prepared to step into the role alongside Broberg.
There's a chance it was just a bad year for Fowler--it happens! At his age, however, a rebound season is far less likely than if he were younger. The entire Blues defense group will hinge on whether he can, at the very least, play close to the high expectations he set in his first 51 games in St. Louis.
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