I would like to start by posing a question. How many games of the St. Louis Blues have you watched this season? (Hint: they have played 10.) If you answer more than three, I am calling you a liar. Why am I calling you a liar? Well, no one, not even Blues fans, are excited about the team—including myself, a lifelong Blues fan. When you are not excited about the team, it is difficult to turn the channel to the Blues, especially when there is so much incredible hockey to watch almost every night. The sad fact is, the Blues are boring. The team has becoming increasingly boring since they won the Stanley Cup in 2019. That was over four years ago. I am tired of giving the Blues a pass because, “Hey, at least they won.” The further we move away from that Cup, the more it looks like it was a fluke. There are serious concerns surrounding this team, and unless this “meh” identity is addressed, St. Louisans are in for some long years.
The Blues are 5-4-1 to start the season with a whopping .550 win percentage according to NHL.com. I expect nothing less from the team to be right about average statistically. That is who this team is. So, I would like to explore two offseason moves that testify to the Blues’ listless and mundane approach: the departure of Darren Pang and the signing of Kevin Hayes.
Darren Pang covered the St. Louis Blues as a color analyst for 14 seasons. Every fan knew his voice and signature phrase, “Holy jumpin!” Players smiled and laughed when he interviewed them. He approached the game with the perfect combination of lightheartedness and passion. Simply put, Pang loved the Blues, and the entire Blues organization, especially fans, loved him. The news that he was leaving the Blues to join the Chicago Blackhawks hit hard.
Now, I will not dive into the details surrounding his departure because Jeremy Rutherford at The Athletic does an excellent job sharing Pang’s story. At a high level, it looks like financial instability surrounding Bally Sports Midwest, Pang’s employer, restricted the organization’s ability to offer Pang a contract he deserved. Meanwhile, the Chicago Blackhawks pursued Pang aggressively and made him a substantial offer that he could not refuse. From all accounts, Pang’s decision was not easy, nor was it strictly driven by money. He played in net for the Blackhawks for parts of three seasons and launched his broadcast career in Chicago, making it a return to home of sorts. All in all, not one person blames Darren Pang for making the move.
The St. Louis Blues are not entirely responsible for Darren Pang’s leaving, although the Blues did grant the Blackhawks permission to talk with him. However, it is difficult not to see Pang’s departure as a reflection of the current state of the organization. Think about the pieces the Blues have lost since 2019: Alex Pietrangelo (Vegas Golden Knights), Ryan O’Reilly (Nashville Predators), Vladimir Tarasenko (Ottawa Senators), Vince Dunn (Seattle Kraken), and Ivan Barbashev (Vegas Golden Knights)—to name only a few players who have made significant impacts on their respective rosters. In fact, of the 12 forwards who played in Game 7 of the Cup Finals in 2019, only two are still on the team (Brayden Schenn and Robert Thomas). Then Darren Pang leaves. Come on, how does it not look like it is all falling apart? It adds fuel to a fire that has been smoldering for some time. To make matters worse, what the Blues have done to fill these gaps has hardly cauterized the wounds.
Let us then turn to the only significant offseason move made by General Manager Doug Armstrong: the acquisition of Kevin Hayes. The Blues sent a sixth-round selection in the 2024 Draft to the Philadelphia Flyers for Hayes. It is a low-risk, potentially decent (I would not say high) reward to bring in Hayes. Is it what the team needed though? Sure, he is coming off his best season (18 goals, 36 assists), but, at 31, he has only ever eclipsed 50 points once. Hayes is not exactly the spark plug the Blues could use to ignite an offense that finished middle of the pack in goals per game last season (again, there is that theme of “average”). Sometimes it appears that the Blues’ motto is, “If it makes us older and slower, let’s do it!”
Darren Pang’s departure and Kevin Hayes’ arrival are indicative of the fact that, at the very least, nothing exciting is happening in St. Louis. This is not only an aesthetic issue, in that the team is not fun to watch. It speaks to something deeper happening in the organization, and I cannot quite put my finger on it. Listening to 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek put into words what I have been sensing. I have transcribed the quote from Friedman below and included the clip as well. Talking about the Blues’ Cup run in 2019, Friedman said:
If you could put a microphone in a meeting between Doug Armstrong, Larry Pleau, Keith Tkachuk, Al MacInnis, Craig Berube…those guys would tear into each other’s ideas. But at the end of the day, it was all about what’s best for us.
This passion between the general manager, coach, and former players (legends of the game) reflected from the top of the organization to the bottom. The team’s spice and vigor was palpable throughout the entire playoff run. To put it another way, the Blues were not boring.
Elliotte Friedman’s insight made me wonder: Are these kinds of discussions happening this year? If they are, are they occurring with the same passion? I am not certain if the Blues’ play reflects what is happening at a higher level or if there is a disconnect between the management and the players. Regardless, the St. Louis Blues need to recapture or rekindle that fire that drove them to the organization’s first-ever Stanley Cup. Recent moves, however, give little confidence that the team’s apathetic identity is being addressed.
Featured Image: LM Otero – Associated Press Photo
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