The St. Louis Blues are carrying the reputation of St. Louis sports right now

The St. Louis Blues are a young and fun hockey team entering a period with real expectations. After a very successful season that saw their return to playoff hockey for the first time in three years, the Blues enter the 2025-26 season with an expectation to perform and win at a high level.

Can the Blues set the benchmark for St. Louis sports again? By all means, they are the class of the city right now.

The reputation of St. Louis is in jeopardy

It's no secret that the St. Louis Cardinals are the love of the town, having a reputation of being rooted in St. Louis for over 100 years now. They have over double the tenure of the Blues, a franchise that is "only" 58 years old.

However, as the Cardinals are entering a rebuilding period, their future does not look very promising at the current moment. Attendance at Cardinals games has been dropping, and frustration with the front office has been rising, a deadly combination for public reputation.

Furthermore, the St. Louis City Soccer Club have struggled the past two seasons after a very successful inaugural year. The City won just 8 of their 34 matches last season and are on a similar pace this season, having only won 4 of their 24 matches this year.

The St. Louis Battlehawks of the UFL have enjoyed more success and been rewarded with ticket sales for it, but the UFL as a whole is struggling, and the future of the league is in question. The Battlehawks have enjoyed much regular season success, but now have back-to-back years with disappointing postseason losses in seasons they could have won it all, meaning frustration is starting to mount with them as well.

This leaves one team to take the reins and carry a great sports city and fanbase: the St. Louis Blues. And now is the best time to get into hockey, more than ever.

Hockey is on the rise

There has never been a better time to get into the NHL than right now. The league is full of dynamic, young, and upcoming talent, and parity is at an all-time high as we are seeing a change of the guard from old teams dominating to a new and more spread-out pool of talent.

The NHL saw one of its most successful ventures ever just this past season with the Four Nations Face-Off. The in-season tournament served as a replacement for the NHL All-Star game and ended up as one of the most-viewed hockey events by television ratings that year.

This indicates that hockey is a growing sport with real interest among general sports fans, as long as they can find a team. And there is no better team to support right now than the St. Louis Blues.

We're the St. Louis Blues and we don't lose

Last season, the Blues went on an unprecedented run after the Four Nations break to secure a wild-card spot and make the playoffs. This historic effort included a 12-game winning streak, the highest mark in franchise history.

This historic run included support from the most unlikely of places. Former NFL head coach and current Barstool Sports employee Jon Gruden threw his full support behind the Blues and energized the fanbase even further, issuing the phrase "We're the St. Louis Blues and we don't lose."

While the Blues' playoff run ultimately ended in heartbreak, the season overall was a rousing success for the team, and the franchise is headed in the right direction. Young players like Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg, and Jake Neighbours are bolstering the young core with their impressive efforts, and established stars Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas are leading the way with their scoring and excellent production.

To draw another comparison between the Blues and the Cardinals, both franchises are going through periods of change and of succession, but are going about it in different ways.

Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeilak selected his successor in Chaim Bloom, but is waiting to hand over the reins until his contract is up. Chaim entered the Cardinals organization this past offseason, meaning he has been working with Mozeilak for a few months.

Meanwhile, on the Blues side of things, general manager Doug Armstrong announced he would be stepping down on his own will after next season and selected a successor who had closely worked with the team previously, Alex Steen. Steen was a player for the Blues for a long time and was a key component of that Stanley Cup-winning team, and transitioned into a scouting and development role once he hung up the skates in 2020. After working with the team for a few seasons, Armstrong recognized his capabilities for what he could do as general manager and last offseason announced the succession plan, with Steen taking over in 2026.

The Blues have a bright future on the ice and off the ice as well. Typically, in sports, these kinds of smooth transitions from one era to the next do not happen, but Doug Armstrong and the Blues had the foresight to get ahead of the impending change and turned their fate for the better. The Blues are running one of the classiest organizations not just in St. Louis but in the NHL, and are setting the tone for what it means to be a part of St. Louis sports.

St. Louis is a city of pride and success stories, and St. Louis sports fans love to reward consistency, loyalty, and tradition. The St. Louis Blues embody all of these aspects right now and are looking to carry the torch for St. Louis sports fans into the near future. So if you're unsure as to what to do regarding St. Louis sports and feel disenfranchised with the direction of the city, head on down to Enterprise Center this winter and see for yourself where the future of the city lies.