The St. Louis Blues finished the 2025-26 season at 37-33-12, good enough for a playoff-adjacent record but not a playoff spot. As Alexander Steen prepares to take the reins from Doug Armstrong and begin reshaping the roster, the performances of Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich, and Pius Suter will factor heavily into how the organization approaches the summer. All three are under contract and all three underperformed relative to recent baselines. All three will need to be better if the Blues are going to push back into the postseason conversation.
Jordan Kyrou
Of the three, Kyrou’s season performance was the most concerning. He finished with 18 goals and 46 points in 72 games, which was a significant drop from the 67-to-75-point range he had established over the previous four seasons. His shooting percentage fell to 10.4%, which was the lowest mark of his career since his rookie season, and his average ice time slipped to 15:44, nearly two and a half minutes below even his 2023-24 season. At 27, Kyrou is locked in through 2031 at $8.13 million annually. That contract was signed on the expectation of a player who pushes 70 points a season and earns top-line minutes. This year, he did neither.
Kyrou has repeatedly shown that he is capable of being one of the more dangerous forwards in the Central Division when he is producing at his ceiling. The Blues need to figure out whether last season was a blip driven by usage, linemates, or circumstance, or if this is something more structural. That evaluation will be one of the first things Steen has to work through.
Pavel Buchnevich
Buchnevich’s decline is slower but harder to ignore. He has posted fewer points in each of his five seasons with the Blues, finishing this year with 20 goals and 48 points across 81 games. His 76-point campaign in 2021-22 looks increasingly like his peak rather than his floor, a normal occurrence, or something fans should expect at any point again.
That said, Buchnevich has continued to generate quality looks. He was deployed 1,452 minutes of ice time, generated a 14.1 shooting percentage and clearly still trusted by the coaching staff as an everyday contributor. The question is not whether he can still play, but whether the Blues can afford to rely on him as a true top-six driver at $8 million through 2031, or whether his role needs to be recalibrated around what he actually is right now.
Pius Suter
Suter’s first season in St. Louis saw him net 13 goals and 29 points in 64 games, a step back from the 46-point, Selke-finalist campaign he put together in Vancouver the season before. To be fair, Suter did miss 18 games and his role shifted from a middle-six forward to a bottom-six role. Suter did manage to keep a 48.4% faceoff rate and he remains one of the better two-way centers on the roster. However, the Blues signed Suter to bring a reliable, defensively responsible forward who could also contribute offensively, ideally, at a middle-six rate. At 29 and under contract through 2027, the expectation is that he stabilizes in that role next season rather than continuing to search for it.