Better luck next year: The St. Louis Blues never fixed their defense

Welcome to the MID-west.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be officially eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The St. Louis Blues.

The good news for the St. Louis Blues is that they improved their record by 11 points in the overall standings from 2022-23 to the 2023-24 season and were at least somewhat hanging around in the playoff race until the very end of the season. The bad news is they still ended up finishing six points out of a playoff spot and well behind the top teams in their own division.

It is just the third time they have missed the playoffs over the past 13 years, but two of those have come in the past two years.

Overall, it was an extremely weird season in St. Louis.

Some of the areas that were thought to be a strength, and were a strength in recent years, ended up being a weakness.

One big area that was expected to be a weakness, and has been for a couple of years now, ended up being a strength.

And one big weakness that hasn’t been meaningfully addressed in years actually ended up being perhaps worse than expected.

Add it all up and you have a team that has fallen into the middle of the NHL's pack with no clear sign on how to climb out of it.

Let’s talk about it.

Everything that went wrong