St. Louis Blues Face Conundrum Wrapped In A Paradox

The St. Louis Blues know they have to get better by the start of the 2018-19 season. Most of us thought we knew how going into the summer, but all the options seem to conflict with the other.

The St. Louis Blues face a serious dilemma in the summer of 2018. Fans are reaching a tipping point of trying to be patient but no longer being happy with what they have been served.

However, there is not a clear option for the team’s success going forward. There are two main options for the Blues this summer and both seem to clash with the other.

The first option is to simply go with a youth movement. To the fans that claim they are tired of waiting, that is not an exciting prospect.

Those fans want a Stanley Cup now, as though they deserve it for being a fan. Nevermind that other teams in larger markets went through lengthier droughts. The Blues have to win it now so that people in their 20’s can stop waiting. Sorry, that went on a tangent.

While I feel those fans’ pain, the truth is this crop of prospects is perhaps the most exciting in over a decade. They might not have been lottery picks, but some of the guys in prospect camp right now look like they could be the long-term future of the franchise.

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Again, the issue with that is the wait. If you rush these players immediately into high pressure situations, you could stunt their growth. Look no further than the last core of this team that was made of draft picks.

We all loved David Backes, T.J. Oshie, David Perron and company. The problem was they had nobody to groom them or ease them into their careers. The Blues were in a situation where they handed those guys the ball and it was probably too early in their careers to handle it.

Look at the success Perron and Oshie had in the past couple years. That was because they were not THE guys on their teams and could perform their roles.

So, you run the risk of doing that all over again to this new crop of prospects. The Blues, as currently constructed, might put those players too high up the lineup.

That brings us to the other option. The Blues can make a big trade in an effort to win now, or at least improve their team immediately.

The problem with that is it currently directly clashes with the option of the prospects.

I’m a large proponent of acquiring Ryan O’Reilly if you can. I think he would be a huge asset to the Blues and, while he might not be a true number one center, the team would have a great one-two punch with O’Reilly and Brayden Schenn.

Cost is the factor that makes the O’Reilly trade, or any big trade at this juncture, less palatable. Almost every rumor out there seems to include names like Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou or some other prospect or current young player the team wants to build around.

How do you find a way to combine these two? That is why they are paying Doug Armstrong the kind of money he gets.

You and I can sit around and argue until we are blue in the face about what should happen, what will happen or the best avenue to a winner. Armstrong has the final say and I do not envy his position.

The fanbase is at such an odd juncture that any move, or non-move, he makes will make half of Blues Nation explode in anger. Make a trade and many will say you’re trading away the future. Do not make a trade and the other half will say you cannot build a winning team.

Again, that is why Armstrong is in a tough spot. Fans think it is so easy, but we can’t even agree with the person next to us about how to go about it.

Even myself, I don’t know which is the best way to go. Clearly, if you can keep Thomas and Kyrou and still obtain O’Reilly, that would be the ultimate.

If one of those names or someone like Colton Parayko plus Klim Kostin is part of the demand, how much is too much?

O’Reilly is not cheap, but he’s been a very consistent performer and you would have him locked in until 2023. St. Louis has a bad history of players going elsewhere and having success though.

It is the cardinal sin of editorializing, but I honestly do not know which way this team should go. I have not been this excited about a couple or handful of prospects in some time.

Is it the social media age we live in? Are they really that good or have we just followed them for so long that we are more emotionally invested than we have any right to be? Even when Oshie and company were coming up, we didn’t have this kind of access. Now, we get to see every little moment from prospect camp and have websites dedicated to allowing us access to these guys in their teens.

We have no emotional investment in any of the rumored trade pieces. However, you can’t keep slapping a fresh coat of paint on the same jalopy and expect it to be a Ferrari.

The one thing we can all agree on is that this issue is of Armstrong’s own making. While I have been a supporter of his, his lack of tweaks to this team have put them in this odd situation where it all comes to a head at once.

The team has money, but no free agents to spend it on. The Blues have ownership willing to do what is necessary to win, but you do not want to give up the future for a short term improvement. Conversely, there are no guarantees that prospects will pan out, no matter how much talent they show. Previous Blues up-and-comers have shown that.

I cannot convince myself that losing out on Thomas would be a good thing. Conversely, I can’t convince myself that going into 2018-19 with no improvements other than rookies is good for the team either.

Next: Trading Parayko Could Create Defensive Holes

It is a big puzzle. It is a puzzle only Armstrong has the ability to solve. If he cannot, this might be his last look at the table full of pieces.

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