There's no sugarcoating it: the St. Louis Blues have been awful this season. They're 6-9-4 in 19 games played, good for 16 standings points--they're tied for last in a competitive Central Division with the abysmal Nashville Predators, but the Blues have a game in hand on the 6-10-4 Preds. The only team worse in the Western Conference is the Calgary Flames, who have 13 points and a 5-12-3 record. After last year's surprise playoff success, the 2025-26 season has been an utter disaster for the Blues.
Is everything as bad as it seems? The underlying statistics paint an ugly picture, but not nearly as dire a situation as it would appear at first glance. Let's dig into it, using 5-on-5 stats courtesy Money Puck.
The elephant in the crease
Before we highlight some stats that provide a bit of hope, we have to address the most concerning and impactful number: team save percentage. Between Joel Hofer and Jordan Binnington, the Blues have an .881 save percentage (SV%)--that's fourth worst in the NHL, ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, and Utah Mammoth, respectively.
That is a dramatic drop from the 2024-25 season, where the Blues finished with a team save percentage of .918, which was the eighth-best mark in the league. That's a nearly three percent drop! You can't win a lot of games if your goaltenders can't stop a puck, and that has been the downfall of the Blues this season. If either Binnington or Hofer is able to go on a heater, the Blues' situation won't be quite as horrible--but with American Thanksgiving a week away, they're running out of time to get back on track.
If they do solve the goaltending issue, though, there is some hope to be had.
All shine, no finish
One of the key reasons the Blues look worse than they are is a discrepancy between their Expected Goals For percentage (xGF%) and their actual Goals For percentage (GF%). The Blues have a middle-of-the-pack 50.69 xGF%, good for 12th in the league, which is about what you'd expect from a playoff bubble team; in fact, it's a slight improvement from last year's 49.56 xGF%.
What sets the alarm bells ringing is the Blues' actual goals percentage: a third-from-the-bottom 42.05 GF%, ahead of only Edmonton and Nashville. In 2024-25, the Blues had a 54.35 GF%, which was fifth in the NHL; that means that, last year, the Blues' process was mediocre, but they were getting some good bounces and finishing on their chances.
This season, the script has flipped: the Blues' process has gotten marginally better, but they aren't scoring like it and are getting blown out when they don't have possession--which, of course, relates back to that horrific team save percentage at 5-on-5.
A weak penalty kill
The Blues have the third-worst penalty kill in the league, only managing to survive 70.8 percent of situations where they're down a man without allowing a goal. We hate to harp on the goaltenders again but, wouldn't ya know it, the .794 SV% between Binnington and Hofer while shorthanded is fourth worst in the NHL. As far as the skaters are concerned, the Blues are middle of the road and are effective enough at killing penalties. It's just that, if a puck gets by a PKer, it's probably going in the net.
For the St. Louis Blues, it really is just all goaltending. Most of what the team's doing elsewhere on the ice is working, but none of it matters if you can't trust your goaltender to make a stop. If the Blues can fix their goaltending--whether through a bounce back from Hofer or Binnington, or perhaps looking outside for help--then they have a chance to turn their season around. Every day they don't, however, and their playoff hopes slip further away.