- The Blues announced Friday that assistants Claude Julien and Mike Weber will not have their contracts renewed for 2026-27.
- Head coach Jim Montgomery now gets to bring in his own staff after inheriting both assistants last season.
- Read below for full details on Julien’s resume, Weber’s role, and what comes next behind the St. Louis bench.
Doug Armstrong is cleaning up behind the bench in St. Louis. The Blues announced Friday that assistant coaches Claude Julien and Mike Weber will not have their contracts renewed for 2026-27.
The move hands head coach Jim Montgomery the chance to bring in his own staff. Both assistants were holdovers Montgomery inherited when he took over for Drew Bannister in November 2024.
“I would like to thank Claude and Mike for their contributions during their time with the organization,” Armstrong said in the team statement. “With their contracts set to expire this summer, we wanted to give them the opportunity to move on to the next chapter of their coaching careers while we work to building a coaching staff that is best suited to lead our team moving forward.”
Julien, 65, signed on as an assistant in the summer of 2024. The Blind River, Ontario native had been out of the NHL since the Canadiens fired him in February 2021. His head coaching resume runs 19 seasons deep, with stints in Montreal, New Jersey, and Boston, plus a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011 and a Jack Adams Award in 2009. He sits 16th on the all-time wins list at 667-445-162 and had never actually been an NHL assistant before this job.
Weber, 38, is at the other end of his coaching career. The former Sabres and Capitals defenseman got his first NHL bench gig in the summer of 2023 under Craig Berube. Before that, he spent three seasons as an assistant with the AHL’s Rochester Americans. The Blues went 124-96-26 across his three years in St. Louis.
St. Louis missed the playoffs this year after pushing the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Jets to the brink in last spring’s first round. A season without postseason hockey gave Armstrong the window to reshape the staff Montgomery had inherited.
Julien’s next step is harder to read. Retirement would not stun anyone at 65, though he has said in the past that he still enjoys the work. Weber will likely catch on somewhere as an assistant again given how little NHL coaching experience he had before Berube took a chance on him.
Montgomery now picks his own lieutenants, which is usually step one for a coach who wants his system installed the way he wants it.
