As we enter the middle of March, the trade deadline is inching closer. Where does each team stand and what moves should they be looking to make? We continue our look around the league with the St. Louis Blues.
While many before the season thought the writing was on the wall for an aging Blues team, a variety of breakout years have kept St. Louis on track this year. Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich, and Ivan Barbashev are all having career-best years that are giving St. Louis some of the best forward depth in the league, and that’s not to mention a good rebound campaign from Vladimir Tarasenko. They’ve also gotten extraordinary goaltending from Ville Husso in recent weeks, keeping the team near the top of the Western Conference after a hot Jordan Binnington start cooled off. Now, they aim to create a roster that’s capable of giving the city of St. Louis its second Stanley Cup in four years.
Record
34-17-8 (.644), second in Central Division
Deadline Status
Buyers
Deadline Cap Space
$113,333 today, $133,333 in full-season space, 0/3 retention slots used, 44/50 contracts per CapFriendly
Upcoming Draft Picks
2022: STL 1st, STL 3rd, STL 4th, OTT 4th*, STL 5th, STL 6th
2023: STL 1st, STL 2nd, STL 3rd, STL 4th, STL 5th, STL 6th, STL 7th
* – Blues receive Ottawa’s 2022 fourth-round selection if Logan Brown plays under 30 regular-season games for St. Louis in 2021-22. Brown has currently played 21 games.
Trade Chips
The St. Louis Blues have absolutely no salary cap flexibility at this stage to make a trade. While they are operating with a full 23-man roster, meaning they can send a player down and be okay (likely Alexei Toropchenko, who doesn’t require waivers), they’ll likely only have around $1MM to work with on Deadline day. With that in mind, any deal they make likely involves a roster player going the other way.
If they can offload him, the most obvious candidate here is defenseman Marco Scandella. Locked in for two more seasons after this with a cap hit of $3.275MM, his ice time has dwindled this year as injuries and age have limited his playing ability. It also doesn’t help that he plays the very position St. Louis is looking to upgrade the most — left defense. With him getting surpassed on the depth chart by Niko Mikkola, the fit for Scandella is simply no longer there.
In terms of the prospect pool that they have to deal from, Klim Kostin could be a piece desirable to other teams. He’s gotten into 40 NHL games this year but now finds himself back in AHL Springfield after just four goals and nine points, averaging nine minutes a game. The final pick of the first round in 2017 still carries significant trade value and would satisfy many teams’ want for an NHL-capable player without St. Louis having to deal from their active roster.
The Blues are also in an enviable position among contenders as they still have their first-round selection in each of the next two seasons. It’s a safe bet that the Blues will consider moving one of those picks, as their incredibly deep forward group and breakout year from Husso in net makes them a dark horse for a deep playoff run.
Team Needs
1) Top-Four Left Defenseman – Their top pairing of Torey Krug and Justin Faulk has been utterly dominant this season, but the team’s defense has been lacking behind that. Colton Parayko is still holding his own defensively, but the other half of the defense is plagued by inexperience and mediocrity. Finding a partner for Parayko has to be priority number one for St. Louis, and maybe Ben Chiarot or another defenseman fits that bill.
2) Depth Center – St. Louis could benefit from someone who can challenge Tyler Bozak and others for a spot in the lineup. Bozak’s age has caught up to him this year, and his -11 rating is the worst on the team. With just three goals on the season, a younger, cheap veteran option could be extremely beneficial.
There’s actually another trade piece available. Since being sent down, James Neal’s tearing things up here in Springfield: he’s scoring at a rate of a goal a game. Possibly a team looking for third-line scoring would take a flyer on him.
its called the James Neal Cycle of Life in the past few years
Starts off the season great!
Either Injured or plays like he should be injured
Gets sent down or the whole fanbase wanting him to curb
Cycle repeats
Unfortunately you know the Blues will gut the T-Birds to make a run like every parent team does to them.
Take Sanford back
no
as much as i liked him here
that’s a kind no
Montreal would probably want Bolduc rather than a 1st round pick for Chiarot. Would the Blues consider a trade starting with those two pieces? Chiarot’s cap hit for the rest of the year is just over 1M$. If Montreal pays half … is the price right?… Chiarot was the left side of the defensive duo that neutralized Mathews, Marner, Dubois, Connor, Pacioretty, Stone, and even Tampa’s top guns (it’s the Bolts third line that sunk the Habs and Vasie) in last year’s playoffs.
I wish Bozak would play better, I love him playing for us
Nick Leddy ($2.75M retained) for Scandella + 2023 2nd + 2023 3rd
St. Louis dumps $,5M this season and Marco’s $3,25M for 2 more years + a better puck mover at LD for the play-offs, Detroit gets a placeholder at LD till their prospects develop + picks
SCAMdella and the 2nd for Leddy
take it or leave it
some salary retained but not all even tho there’s not much to retain heh
I did not say salary retention on Marco.
Tyler Bozak is out at least a month see above story
Call the Jets and trade for Brendon Dillon and Paul Statzny. Move Bozak to LTIR, add Scandella to the trade. Solves both problems. If there needs to be retained salary increase the deal.