The St. Louis Blues were unable to handle Steven Stamkos and the Nashville Predators in the battle of the bottom of the Central Division, losing 7-2. It was a lackluster effort from about 95% of this team, and now the Blues face even more uncertainity as a big homestand is upcoming over the next four games.
Looking at the NHL Standings, the Blues have a record that now reads 11-14-7 through 32 games of competition. They sit just ahead of the Predators by one point for last place in the Central Division, and are only three points behind Utah for the second wild card spot. But, looking further down the line shows a rather telling revelation as to how rough this season has been.
After losing 7-2, their goal differential now reads at an NHL-low -35. This tweet here should hit the nail on the head as to how historic that stat is.
From @MDeFranks: STL has a NHL-worst minus-30 goal margin, and that stretched to minus-35 with the loss in Nashville. Across an entire season, the Blues have had a minus-35 goal margin in just nine of their seasons in franchise history and only three times in the last 45 years.
— Benjamin Hochman (@hochman) December 12, 2025
Wrong side of history
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on how the Blues could join the wrong side of history by joining the 1974-75 Washington Capitals with an entire team of relevant players in the negative of plus/minus. Now, they have a -35 goal differential, which has only happened across an entire season on nine occasions in this franchise's 58 seasons.
That is a proper representation of how things are going. When you couple spotty goaltending, even more inconsistent defense, and an offensive unit that has only scored two or more goals in 12 of their last 14 games, it is pretty clear that there is not one singular blame for this.
The entire team is stuck in a rut, and it cannot get out of its own way to fix it. After all this time, the 32 games have not pointed this team in any kind of direction, either forward or backward. That is why this team has been referred to as an average team.
Now, this team has to rise up and try to dust itself off, once again, to try and avoid being the 10th team in 58 years to have a goal differential worse than -35. For those playing along at home, the worst goal differential in Blues franchise history was in 1977-78, at -109.