Coach named on interim basis after Craig Berube was fired Dec. 12 went 30-19-5; Doug Armstrong said list has been whittled down

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- Drew Bannister sat at a podium on Thursday answering questions regarding the St. Louis Blues speaking of the past, present and ... the future.

Bannister, the Blues' interim coach since taking over for Craig Berube on Dec. 12, doesn't have any clarity yet on if he will become the permanent head coach, but the 50-year-old feels he's put his best foot forward after the 2023-24 season ended on Wednesday night.

"I've been very lucky with the opportunity that the ownership here and Doug [Armstrong] and the rest of the management have given me," Bannister said. "Not only coming here mid-season but giving me my first opportunity to coach pro hockey in the American Hockey League.

"I'm proud of the way these players have conducted themselves since I've come in. I'm certainly a better coach because of the group that is here. Without that opportunity that Tom [Stillman], the rest of the ownership and Doug have given me. I certainly wouldn't be sitting up here in front of you guys today. I'm very appreciative of that."

Armstrong, the Blues' GM, announced Thursday that Bannister is a finalist for the job, and that the list isn't as extensive as it once was, but he did not say yet who will get the job or when said person will be announced.

"I talked to Drew in the last week or so and told him that he's going to be a candidate for the head coaching job," Armstrong said. "I feel that for the process it's necessary to interview a few people, but what I told him is when we made the coaching change, I was creating a list and the list was deep and extensive and as I watched him perform and I watched our team perform, I started to cross names off that list, and now Drew is one of a very small number of people I want to talk to about moving forward.

"I thought he did a very good job. I thought he was able to put a balance of pushing and prodding to get the best team on the ice every night with also throwing a little bit of hope out there and a blind eye to putting young players in situations they haven't been in and living with the results. I think that's how you grow. We had some young players do some really good things and we had some young players make young mistakes that cost us. That's part of growth, and that's what I thought Drew did a great job of doing. To answer that question, Drew is a finalist for the head coaching position and that list isn't extensive."

Bannister closed out this season 30-19-5, good for a .602 winning percentage, which would be 10th-best in the league since and fourth in the Western Conference. In the grand scheme of things, being told immediately, or even prior to addressing the media on Thursday that the job was his would be the most ideal situation for Bannister, but he understands the scenario.

"I understand the process and what they're going through," Bannister said. "When I first came in, there were no promises made. There was no expectations other than getting this team to where we all believed it could be and starting that process with the players and working on the habits and details in our game that we know we had to get better at to start to have success. I'm proud that myself and our coaching staff and the players bought into that. I think we saw a lot of good things happen that we can build on for next year."

Sounds like a coach that's confident that he will be retained, but Armstrong said some of the candidates he has his eye on haven't had their seasons end as of yet, and they do have an idea when one will be implemented.

"I think we have a good pulse," Armstrong said. 'I'm fortunate to have an inner circle of people in our organization that I trust and have a lot of experience. We've been talking about this for a number of months on where we want to go to and as that was going, Drew was expanding his own resume. It's not something I think is going to happen over the next four or five days. I'm not going to give specific names, but some of the names that I want to talk to aren't available. Their teams are playing and some of the names I want to talk to I'm going to give a little time to. We certainly will have a head coach well before the draft. I'm thinking well before June 1st, but I'm not putting a timeline on it in that because it's not an extensive group. I think when maybe you look at some of the coaches, the people in this situation, they're just starting the process and they might have 15 names and might want to talk to eight or nine. I've whittled that down to as I said, a very, very small number."

When asked about one familiar name, former Blues coach Joel Quenneville, who is currently out of hockey after resigning from his post as Florida Panthers coach in 2021 following the chain of events regarding the situation in 2010 with Chicago Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach, Armstrong would not comment.

"I'm not going to get into any individual names on what we're going to do on anyone quite honestly," Armstrong said.

This will be, in short term, the most pressing order of business as the Blues plan for their offseason, so stay tuned.