Late on Tuesday night, following a 6-4 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on home ice that saw them surrender three different leads, the St. Louis Blues decided to relieve head coach Craig Berube of his duties, appointing Drew Bannister as interim head coach.
Why This Was Berube’s Time
The move is a shock in many respects, as Berube is in the second season of a three-year contract extension he signed in 2022. Moreover, the Calahoo, Alberta native is the only head coach in Blues history to steer the team to a Stanley Cup, doing so in his first partial season with the Blues. Like Bannister, Berube was a midseason replacement initially named “interim head coach,” when he stepped in for Mike Yeo in 2018. But he orchestrated one of the greatest comebacks in NHL history, driving the Blues from dead last to Stanley Cup glory.
But the Blues loss to the Red Wings is their fourth loss in a row, including back-to-back defeats to the Columbus Blue Jackets and Chicago Blackhawks, two of the worst teams in the league. The players look listless, and what was once hoped to be a “bounceback season” is quickly sliding towards “extended rebuild” territory. General manager Doug Armstrong might recall several extended losing streaks last season, including a franchise record eight-game losing streak near the start of the season, which contributed to the Blues missing the playoffs for the first time in Berube’s tenure. His inability to stop those extended streaks last season might have spurred Armstrong to stop the bleeding quicker than he otherwise would have.
But there is more than a four-game losing streak at play here. While some parts of the Blues’ roster, especially the goaltending, do seem improved over last season, the franchise as a whole seems stuck in the same rut that it has been since at least the start of the 2022-23 campaign. And the power play especially has struggled: its 8.8 percent success rate ranks second-worst in the league (their 78.4 percent success on the penalty kill also ranks in the bottom half of the league).
While roster construction plays a major factor, Berube’s failure to utilize the offensive talent the Blues have is probably responsible for his downfall. While the team has many flaws, they should be able to score goals in bunches, but players like Jordan Kyrou and Brayden Schenn are struggling, and Jakub Vrána, who many hoped would have a 20-plus goal season with the team, looks to be on the way out.
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Ultimately, while a realistic evaluation of the Blues should have kept expectations for this season low, Berube was not excelling with whatever talent he had. Things had started to slide, and Armstrong chose to act before they got any worse. Now, former Springfield Thunderbirds head coach Drew Bannister will be the new head coach.
Why Bannister? (And What to Expect)
Though we won’t know the full reasoning for why the Blues chose Bannister as their next coach over an NHL option like Steve Ott, one obvious benefit is his familiarity with the franchise’s young players. He has served as the team’s American Hockey League (AHL) head coach longer than Berube was the NHL head coach, joining the San Antonio Rampage in June 2018 and later transitioning to the Thunderbirds when the Blues’ affiliate changed. In that half-decade, Bannister will have coached almost all of the team’s young players and should be able to help Armstrong decide which players should remain as part of the long-term project.
Apart from his familiarity with young players, Bannister has also had plenty of success in the past few years. He has led the Thunderbirds to a 93-58-19 regular-season record over the last three seasons and steered them to consecutive playoff appearances, including a trip to the Calder Cup Final in 2022. Moreover, he has orchestrated successful power plays. This season, the Thunderbirds rank 13th with a 19.6 percent power play success rate, but the past two seasons were even more impressive: in 2021-22 they were eighth (20.3 percent), and in 2022-23 they were fourth (22.8 percent).
Whether Armstrong truly expects the team to turn things around, or whether he’s just hoping to see the best of his players to inform decisions and entice trade interest entering the offseason, Bannister should help the team improve. At the very least, he’ll be a new, but familiar voice for the young players that should be the core of the team going forward.
Berube’s Legacy in St. Louis
The old maxim insists that coaches in the NHL are hired to be fired. Theirs is a brutal job. But Berube wasn’t officially “hired” as the Blues’ head coach until after he’d managed the greatest feat in franchise history: winning the Blues’ lone Stanley Cup.
Over the four seasons plus that Berube has coached since then, he’s climbed the record books for the franchise, despite battling the unprecedented interruptions to the NHL schedule caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (effects that hit the Blues as hard as any team). Berube is third in franchise history in games coached (381), wins (206), points (456), and playoff wins (24), and he’s tied for second in points percentage (.598) with Joel Quenneville. There is no debate that Berube belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Blues coaches. And while his time might be at an end, his legacy will endure with the franchise for years to come.
Blues Face the Future
As they say, “What’s past is prologue.” In one week, the Blues traded Robert Bortuzzo and relieved Berube, removing two of the few remaining pieces of that Stanley Cup-winning team. Now, they have to face their future — whatever it might look like. They seem to have bright prospects, especially in Jimmy Snuggerud and Dalibor Dvorský, but it seems likely at this point that the rebuilding process will have to be much more extensive. The only thing certain right now is that, however long the rebuild takes, Berube won’t be a part of it. It is Bannister’s team for the time being, and the Blues will begin to know what that means better when he coaches them on home ice against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.