“If the coaching change was made and the performance didn’t change, then we would have to look to see if we had the right mix of players,” Armstrong said. “Bringing in Ken with all that experience, I knew they were getting top-level coaching. That question mark was going to be removed.”

Before that, Hitchcock said he wondered if he might get another chance. Four interviews last summer proved fruitless. (Hitchcock declined to identify the teams, but published reports linked him to openings in Minnesota, Dallas and the Devils.) Hitchcock said he received a “get ready” message from another team two days before Armstrong called in November. Three more teams made changes by the end of that month.

While driving to St. Louis from Columbus, Hitchcock called Backes. They talked for more than an hour. Backes assured Hitchcock that the players were ready to listen and accept whatever he wanted to do.

“He wasn’t the most liked person on my list,” Backes said. “You’re playing against him, that’s the way a lot of the guys are in the league. But he put a lot of faith in me and the leadership group as a whole. We needed a little more structure, guidance and a newer voice that had tons of credibility. Whatever he said, guys pretty much had to believe.”

They did. Checking and blocking shots became Blues staples. The penalty-killing unit, anchored by Pietrangelo and Barret Jackman on defense, entered the weekend ranked seventh in the N.H.L. and first since the All-Star break. In one stretch the Blues killed 51 consecutive short-handed situations. And their 30-4-4 mark at home led the N.H.L., a big deal in one of the league’s noisiest buildings.

“The first thing — and he’ll be the first to admit it — he wasn’t coming in having to reconstruct something that was completely broken,” Langenbrunner said. “We were doing a lot of good things. For him, he really simplified things for us. He looked at the strengths of this team and really emphasized those, and instilled some confidence in some guys.”

Hitchcock’s next challenge: the team’s lackluster playoff history. St. Louis has never won a Stanley Cup, has not been to the finals since 1970 and last won a playoff series in 2002. The 2000 Blues are one of five Presidents’ Trophy winners since 1986 to be eliminated in the first round, by San Jose.

“We’re going to have to be really good for a long period of time to win a playoff series,” Hitchcock said. “The thing I like right now is, the cracks that we had in our game before are becoming eliminated. We’ve got more players playing better hockey. We’re not carrying as many poor performances along the way. That helps a heck of a lot.”