St. Louis Blues Rumors: Blues To Ink Deal With Penguins?

TSN’s Darren Dreger took to the airwaves Friday morning to talk Draft day, his favorite picks, and of course, which teams he thought might make a trade.

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The St. Louis Blues are apparently on his radar. Today’s Slapshot went to the trouble of recording his words in writing:

"I think that there’s a strong appetite inside the Penguins’ organization to just change things up a little bit. And by a little bit, it could be a pretty significant trade. I keep hearing rumblings that – we know Rutherford is looking for a top-6 forward. We know that. Well, is T.J. Oshie from the St. Louis Blues a top-6? On a deep team like Pittsburgh, I think it’s a bit of a stretch. But if he can play in their top-6, good for him.“But I keep hearing rumblings that if all else fails, Pittsburgh and St. Louis might do something just to shake things up a little bit for both clubs. So maybe we see Oshie to the Pittsburgh Penguins with a young prospect like Ty Rattie, as an example, and then coming back the other way is Brandon Sutter of the St. Louis Blues. I mean, those are some of the rumblings that kind of dropped in my lap last night."

A Oshie-Rattie trade for Sutter is one of those apples-to-apples trades ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun said Blues GM Doug Armstrong is looking for. It doesn’t change up the cap situation for either team, and goals-wise, swapping Oshie for Sutter is realistically about the same.

But on teams that are looking to change up their cores, like both the Blues and Penguins are, this could be an interesting move that both GMs would see as a plus.

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The Penguins face cap difficulties due to Sidney Crosby’s and Evgeni Malkin’s incredibly high salaries of $8.7 million and $9.5 million apiece. They’re consistently looking for depth players to support Crosby and Malkin, and particularly for talented wingers like Oshie.

Penguins GM Jim Rutherford traded for David Perron to replace Chris Kunitz (who replaced Pascal Dupuis) on Crosby’s wing, and Perron developed more slowly than some might have liked. If that’s something he’s interested in tweaking, Oshie would be a smart move.

Fit-wise, the Penguins tend to encourage a little more creativity than the Blues do, which might be a bonus for Oshie. It would certainly get Rattie more playing time, as he’s stuck in the AHL behind a load of depth players in St. Louis.

As for the Blues, several centers are coming up on free agency this summer and Armstrong has indicated he isn’t interested in re-signing them. Sutter is currently a strong 3C for Pittsburgh (and might be a good 2C somewhere if he weren’t stacked up behind Crosby and Malkin) and would give Stastny and Lehtera a little competition for the 2C or 3C role in St. Louis.

The one drawback is: this does nothing in regards to pulling a first-round pick in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft scheduled for tonight.

Next: Should Blues Offer For No. 3 Pick?

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