For the last 22 years (13 with The Hockey News) Dobber has reviewed each team from a fantasy-hockey standpoint and graded them.

The 23rd annual review will appear here on DobberHockey throughout the summer. This is not a review of the likely performance on the ice or in the standings, but in the realm of fantasy hockey both for the season ahead as well as the foreseeable future. Offensively, will the team perform? Are there plenty of depth options worthy of owning in keeper leagues? What about over the next two or three years? These questions are what I take into consideration when looking at the depth chart and the player potential on that depth chart.

Enjoy!

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For full team breakdowns, projections, category-specific options, and a whole lot more, pick up a copy of the 2025-26 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide today! It will be updated all through the offseason and training camps, and is available now in the Dobber Shop.

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Gone: Radek Faksa, Ryan Suter, Zach Bolduc, Nick Leddy

Incoming: Logan Mailloux, Pius Suter, Nick Bjugstad

Impact of Changes: For fantasy purposes, not a whole lot really changed. St. Louis' entire top-6 forward mix returns, or top-7 if we include Jimmy Snuggerud, and Leddy was given bottom-pair usage in 2024-25. Most fantasy-relevant players are in the same spot they were last year.

Leddy and Suter both leaving opens a permanent role for guys like Tyler Tucker, Matthew Kessel, and Mailloux. Tucker could be a big peripheral option (100 PIMs, 100 blocks, 200 hits) if he can play a full season, so he's someone to keep in mind for multi-cat formats.

If there is one big difference, the additions of Suter and Bjugstad make the Blues at least three lines deep up front. They have their top-7 forwards, Suter, and Bjugstad to comprise their top three lines and that is good news for the goaltenders. It also gives coach Jim Montgomery lots of options to mix-and-match up front, which could be a headache for fantasy managers; one game, Jake Neighbours is on the top line with Robert Thomas, and the next game he's on the third line with Suter. It also lessens the loss of Bolduc and Faksa, who both had good years for the Blues in 2024-25, and allows Montgomery to experiment to find a fourth line that works.

Ready for Full Time: Jimmy Snuggerud

Snuggerud finished his college career at Minnesota and played seven regular season and seven playoff games, totaling three goals and eight points along the way. In the postseason, he was the Blues' sixth forward by even-strength ice time share, and first by power-play ice time share. That was with Dylan Holloway injured, but Snuggerud plays the right side and Holloway the left, so a healthy Holloway is more of a threat for Neighbours's EV and PPTOI than he is to Snuggerud.

In Dobber's latest prospect rankings, he had Snuggerud 14^th in the league. He should maintain top-6 deployment in St. Louis and if he holds onto that valuable power-play time, he could very well finish in the top-3 for Calder Trophy voting at the end of the season.

Dalibor Dvorsky is one name to watch. Right now, St. Louis doesn't really have room on the roster for him, so he may be headed back to the AHL to start the season. If he picks up where he left off last year and keeps building, he won't be in the AHL all season. He could be on the Frank Nazar timeline where he spends a couple months in the AHL before moving to the NHL in December or January.

Fantasy Outlook

There isn't a first-round fantasy pick on this roster, but there is a lot of fantasy goodness. The 2025-26 Dobber Fantasy Guide has the team with seven different 20-goal scorers (and Suter is projected for 19), three forwards projected for at least 70 points, and five defencemen projected for at least 30 points. There is no Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov, or Zach Werenski on this roster, but there are plenty of guys worth taking between picks 50-150.

How high the ceiling is will depend on the play of the triumvirate of Holloway, Snuggerud, and Philip Broberg. Holloway and Broberg both had breakout seasons and Snuggerud looked everything he was billed as being in his brief NHL stint. If those three can be as good, or even better, in 2025-26, then this roster could have a couple 30-goal scorers in Holloway and Jordan Kyrou, and several 60-point forwards like those two, Thomas, Snuggerud, and Pavel Buchnevich. There is also a lot of banger value from guys like Neighbours, Holloway, and Brayden Schenn.

The defence is a bit suspect. Broberg looks like the real thing and Colton Parayko should be his usual stellar self. After that, they need a repeat of Cam Fowler's resurgence, Justin Faulk's decline to slow down, and the bottom-pair options in Tucker, Kessel, and Mailloux to not get crushed. Those last three names have 168 total regular season NHL games between them, and none has more than 90, so the third pair is completely unproven. If they don't step up, there'll be a lot of bad minutes from this blue line. But depending on the fantasy format, they could have as many as five fantasy-relevant options in Parayko, Broberg, Fowler, Faulk, and Tucker.

Jordan Binnington had a solid enough season with a .900 save percentage and 28 wins in 54 starts. He remains the team's starting goalie, but Joel Hofer has 61 appearances (55 starts) over the last two years with a .909 save percentage in that stretch. Hofer will be a serviceable streaming goalie in 12-team fantasy leagues but should Binnington's bad side rear its head as it did in 2021-22, 2022-23, and the first two-thirds of 2024-25, Hofer could be in line for a big second half. Then again, if Binnington holds his own, then it's likely not much different from last year. 

Fantasy Grade: B (last year was a B-)

*For the rest of the Offseason Fantasy Grades series, just click here.