In the middle of the 2024-25 season, then-general manager Doug Armstrong made a trade that had people scratching their heads. The St. Louis Blues acquired Cam Fowler and a fourth-round pick from the Anaheim Ducks on December 14, 2024, for a second-round pick and prospect Jérémie Biakabutuka, and the Ducks retained some of Fowler's salary.
Fowler, a veteran defenseman in his early 30s, was coming off a season where he posted a respectable 39 points, but carried a whopping minus-36 goal differential--the worst mark of his career. To any outside observers, Fowler appeared washed, and the Blues giving up a decent draft pick to add him seemed unwise.
By the end of the season, however, Armstrong looked like a genius. Fowler turned back the clock and put up 36 points in 51 games with the Blues, as well as a plus-19 goal differential. After that strong a showing, Armstrong wasted no time locking up Fowler to a three-year, $6.1-million AAV extension a year before his current deal was up.
Unfortunately, things haven't gone so well since.
Impact in 2025-26
In the final year of his deal, Fowler looked a lot more like he did at the end of his tenure with the Ducks, rather than his Blues debut season. Sure, he played all 82 games and had a solid 30 points--but his goal differential was back down to a minus-11, and he was a mess defensively.
The Blues had issues elsewhere in their lineup (they were especially let down by the goaltending), but a weak blue line group didn't help. Logan Mailloux was essentially unplayable the first half of the season; Justin Faulk and Colton Parayko looked like they'd lost a step, and Fowler seemed lost--only Philip Broberg found a way to excel. Fowler's regression was a key reason the defense fell apart.
Expectations for 2026-27
Fowler is entering the first year of the extension he signed during the offseason of 2025, and he'll turn 35 years old in December. The chances of him rebounding to the player he was in his youth--or at least the level he was at during his first 51 games he played with the Blues--are slim.
Unfortunately for the Blues, their entire defense group hinges on Fowler succeeding. Broberg is the clear No. 1, and Mailloux seems to be on the path to being a second-pair defenseman, but Parayko can't handle that kind of workload anymore, and Faulk is gone. The Blues don't have much of a choice: Fowler will have to play on the top pair, next to Broberg, and take on the toughest minutes as a result. If he gets caved in again this season, the Blues are in trouble.
We don't need him to be a No. 1 defenseman, the way he was in Anaheim--but he has to be at least passable in a top-four role. That means putting up some points, and not getting blown out of the water defensively. If Fowler can do that, the Blues ought to be fine.
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