ST. LOUIS (AP) — Robert Thomas wore the “C” as captain of the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League in 2017-18 and a year later found himself hoisting the Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues.
Now he's looking to put that experience to use after being named the Blues' captain in the organization's latest change of leadership.
“I definitely learned a lot from the first time,” Thomas said Thursday at a news conference with new general manager Alex Steen, alternate captains Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway, Jake Neighbours and Colton Parayko, and coach Jim Montgomery.
"The No. 1 thing is just being authentic, being yourself. You take bits and pieces from everyone, but you’ve got to really believe in yourself and in your leadership group, and that’s something that we all really believe in.”
Thomas led St. Louis with 25 goals, 39 assists and 64 points last season despite playing in just 64 games. His 31 points in 22 games after returning from leg surgery on March 1 ranked eighth in the NHL.
Selected with the 20th pick in the 2017 draft, Thomas has five years remaining on the $65 million contract extension he signed in July 2022. Jordan Kyrou, who got identical terms on his deal two months later, got traded to Washington this summer.
Thomas being named the 25th captain in franchise history comes during a period of transition for the Blues. Steen succeeded longtime GM Doug Armstrong in the role on July 1.
Steen played with Thomas from 2018-20 and has seen the 27-year-old center develop traits that make a successful captain.
“Robert’s really, really dug himself into the fabric of the organization and the city and has a great understanding of the responsibilities of this role,” Steen said. “He looks for information, resources. He’s a very curious person, wants to evolve all the time, and I know he’s going to be great at this. And this is something that he’s going to continue to grow with.”
Thomas was one of several members of the Blues leadership group entrusted with a bigger role after the club traded then-captain Brayden Schenn to the New York Islanders on March 6.
“He really evolved as a leader in that last month,” Montgomery said. “At one point, I don’t remember exactly what game, but we were at home and our first period was a little lethargic. I said, ‘Thomer, this is time for you to take over the room,’ and the way the team responded to him in the second and third gave me a lot of confidence that he’s our guy.”
See AP’s full NHL coverage here
FILE - St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas reacts after scoring an empty-net goal during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Minnesota Wild, March 1, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt, File)
OSLO, Norway--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 10, 2026--
Cyviz AS has delivered a flexible collaboration hub for Swiss International Air Lines Ltd. (SWISS), designed to support hybrid meetings, workshops, training, town halls, and internal events at scale. The project highlights how global enterprises are investing in reliable, intuitive, and versatile collaboration environments as hybrid work becomes embedded in day-to-day operations.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260910985990/en/
Located at SWISS headquarters in Zurich-Kloten, Switzerland, the new collaboration hub demonstrates how enterprise collaboration spaces are evolving from traditional meeting rooms into strategic workplace infrastructure. Delivered by Cyviz, the environment supports a wide range of hybrid formats while making advanced room technology simple for everyday users.
Designed to switch seamlessly between separate and combined room configurations, the space enables everything from team meetings and workshops to training sessions, quarterlies, town halls, and internal events. The project addresses a growing enterprise need for collaboration environments that support multiple use cases while remaining intuitive and dependable.
For SWISS, three priorities shaped the project from the outset: flexibility, simplicity, and reliability. The system needed to support technically advanced room configurations while ensuring a seamless experience for end users.
"What stands out with Cyviz is the commitment, the responsiveness, and the ability to react quickly when something is important. The room is technically complex, but for users it feels simple. That gives us confidence in the solution," said Stefano Buonaiuto, Head of IT Operations at SWISS.
The project also reflects a broader shift in workplace technology. High-visibility collaboration spaces increasingly serve as multifunctional hubs for decision-making, training, communication, and culture-building across distributed teams. As a result, expectations for operational consistency, user adoption, and support responsiveness continue to rise.
"For global enterprises, the most valuable collaboration spaces are the ones people trust enough to use every day," said John V. Laerhoven, Sales Director at Cyviz. "The challenge is to make complex environments easy to use, reliable to operate, and flexible enough to support how people actually meet, train, and make decisions.”
The deployment aligns with Cyviz' strategy of helping organizations create more predictable and resilient technology environments. By combining room-level usability with greater visibility, standardization, and operational control, the solution enables organizations to manage growing workplace technology complexity while supporting productivity, collaboration, and culture within a single integrated environment.
Watch Video Case
Inside the SWISS collaboration hub at their headquarters in Zurich
