St. Louis Blues John Tavares Pipedream Over Before It Began

The St. Louis Blues need some help this offseason. They are going to need not only the help of players, but teams willing to aid them too. Both will be very difficult as we are already learning.

The St. Louis Blues have to add something this offseason. We can debate for months whether that is via a trade for a bigger name or trying to add a veteran piece via free agency or simply letting the kids have their turn.

There is no set answer right now because, as a little green guy once said, “difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.” Truer words may have never been spoken.

The reality is the Blues do need an upgrade up the middle. Paul Stastny is still a great player, but at this stage, barring some miracle return to his Colorado form, he’s a second line center.

He has not developed the kind of chemistry with Vladimir Tarasenko any of us had hoped. So that compounds the problem since he’s the most capable of playing first line minutes but probably should not be.

There were very vague rumors (mostly fan hopes) of the Blues going after John Tavares. That was always going to be difficult, but now it seems borderline-impossible.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem completely out of the realm of possibility. Tavares is currently earning $6 million with a cap hit of $5.5 million.

If the Blues lose the right people to Las Vegas and include the right pieces in a trade, that would be more than doable. The problem is Tavares is in the final year of his contract.

He’s not looking for a modest raise according to many reports. There are some suggesting he could be seeking, or the Islanders could be willing to almost double his salary.
More is being made of that number right now than there should be because some media outlets take a little snippet and run with it.

Whether Tavares re-signs with the Islanders or not is not the main issue. Even if he does not re-sign with them, trading for him might prove to be a rental situation if he is actually seeking anywhere near that sort of money.

Let’s play the game for a moment. Best case scenario, Las Vegas takes Jori Lehtera off our hands. I don’t think that will happen, but just for the sake of argument let’s say it does.

That clears $4.7 million off the ledger. That would give you an estimated $9.1 million in cap space.

You have to re-sign Colton Parayko though, so cut that in half and you have about $4.55 million in space. Take away about $1 million because you need wiggle room for injuries and bringing up AHL players, etc.

Now, you are down to $3.5 million in space. That means you have to trade someone like Jaden Schwartz just to get the figure back to around $9 million.

You now don’t have the funds to give Robby Fabbri an extension without other guys leaving. You could assume that David Perron might be gone once his contract is up after 2017-18, but you’re still working right up against the cap.