St. Louis Blues Trade News: Saturday Recap
By Kate Cimini
As the trade deadline of March 2nd draws nearer and nearer, we at Bleedin’ Blue decided to recap the day’s trades for you. We focus on the St. Louis Blues trade news, as well as how other teams’ movements affect our Blues. This feature will run every day until trade deadline.
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Recap
Yesterday saw only one trade, but it was a fairly important one for the St. Louis Blues — their longtime rival, the Chicago Blackhawks, picked up defenseman Kimmon Timonen. As we discussed yesterday in our trade recap, he is on the older side at 40, and has spent the past season recovering from blood clots in his right leg and both lungs. To add to that, Timonen has said that he plans to retire from NHL play at the end of next season. However, even taking all that into account, Timonen could prove to be a short-term solution to the Blackhawks defensive problems.
And that could be trouble for St. Louis, especially as it looks as though the two teams will be meeting in the first round of the playoffs again.
New News
Photo from NHL.com
The Washington Capitals acquired defender Tim Gleason from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for defenseman Jack Hillen and a fourth-round pick to be used in the upcoming draft. Will this be awkward for Gleason and Hillen, considering their teams played each other only last night? Yeah, probably. But does that matter for the purposes of this trade recap? Nope, but it sure was fun to point out.
Down to the meat of the situation: how does this affect St. Louis?
The Hurricanes are busy selling off assets for a rebuild, a la Arizona or Toronto. And the Capitals are more dangerous this year than ever under Barry Trotz. I don’t think Trotz is a Stanley Cup-caliber coach just yet, but he’s taken a team that was absolutely miserable to watch last year and turned them into a clean, formidable opponent. Adding Gleason to a defense that is already pretty strong at the blue line is bound to make scoring on Washington an even tougher prospect.
But after a pretty embarrassing drubbing last night by Carolina (going 4-0), a team that is 23-30-7 and 23 points behind them in the standings, the Capitals must have felt like their defense needed some beefing up.
Gleason has been with the Hurricanes since 2006, barring one year spent with the Leafs. It will be interesting to see if the Capitals send him back to Carolina at the end of next season.
Photo from NHL.com
The Ducks and Panthers also came to an agreement on forwards Tomas Fleischmann and Dany Heatley. Fleischmann went to the Ducks and Heatley to the Panthers along with a third round pick for the 2015 draft.
How does this affect the Blues?
It may not, frankly. Heatley will report to the Panthers’ AHL team. He scored 50 goals two seasons in a row…nearly ten years ago. Fleischmann on the other hand, has never been a consistent goal-scorer, and his play can be streaky, going games with strong play and games where he’s drifting on the ice. Fleischmann will want to double down for the remainder of the season if he wants to see a lot of ice time in the playoffs.
Photo from NHL.com
And in Blackhawks news, they acquired Antoine Vermette from the Coyotes for Klas Dahlbeck and a 2015 first-round pick, a high price to pay but they were likely only one of many bidders for Vermette, a point-scoring forward who currently sits at 35 in 63 games this season. He’s a little low for his historical totals, but the Blackhawks needed another center, what with Richards’ contract ending this season, Shaw’s lack of prowess between the wings (though decency at the dot) and Vermette fit the bill. He can score, he’s an excellent faceoff taker, and he’s actually capable of back checking.
How does this affect the Blues?
The Blackhawks have beefed up their defense and their offense in the past 24 hours. They are about to get much more dangerous across all aspects — the blue line, the faceoff circle, at the net…essentially, it will be hard to screw this up. The Blues need to be prepared for a massive seven-game fight if and when it comes down to that.
On the plus side, this cost the Blackhawks a first-round pick for this draft and a large AHL defender who will soon be at least a strong second-liner in the NHL. So they may have beefed up for the playoffs, but they’ve weakened themselves for next year if Vermette is only a rental.