St. Louis Blues Trading Colton Parayko Would Create Other Holes

The old saying goes, where there is smoke, there is fire. That might mean that Colton Parayko’s days with the Blues are numbered. That does not mean it’s automatically a good thing.

The St. Louis Blues social media pages were set ablaze yesterday. Fake reports and rumors got tumbling downhill faster than a snowball during an avalanche.

The main rumor was the Blues had acquired Ryan O’Reilly and a defenseman in return for Colton Parayko and Robert Thomas. There were also some draft picks swapped in the trade that was not real.

However, the interesting thing about this was that it caught enough steam to have to be denied by official sources. While the team did not respond, several Blues writers such as Jeremy Rutherford did, quashing the rumor or the validity that a deal is worked out in principle.

While we have mainly discussed how a move of Parayko is unlikely, even in that piece we said things change. Perhaps they are changing.

For the Blues, they have reached a point where it is almost impossible to just keep putting icing on the cake. Eventually the ingredients in the cake have to change and almost all times that will alter the flavor.

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With that in mind, almost nobody is jumping up and down, screaming to the heavens for the Blues to trade Parayko. Most fans fall into categories where they think it’s either extremely dumb, or understand it to a point of begrudging acceptance.

The problem including Parayko in such a deal would pose is it would cause a sudden lack of depth. The Blues have quite a few defensemen. They don’t have quite a few top four defensemen.

The Blues could move Vince Dunn to the top four. Then, you are creating an imbalance of left and right shots, which have plagued the forward lines already.

Jordan Schmaltz is a right handed shot. However, nothing he showed in 2017-18 gave an indication he was ready for a top-four gig yet.

If we look at the incoming players from the system, it would not get any rosier.

David Noel had a fantastic junior career, but he has played all of one professional game. He is another left-handed shot too.

Jake Walman is still very high on the Blues list. He did not get much quality time in the AHL, being pushed between Chicago and Binghamtom due to the Blues weird minor league system last year. We do not know that he is ready.

Petteri Linbohm is a decent player, but he’s more a bottom pairing kind of guy. Also, he’s been quite injury prone lately.

All the other pieces the Blues have are either junior hockey players or college guys. That is not to say nobody could make the jump. Parayko, himself, came from obscurity to a second pairing very fast. That is very rare though.

The Blues are very unlikely to make a goaltending change. Even as a Jake Allen fan and apologist, I do not want to go into 2018-19 with a rookie in my top four if I can avoid it.

These trades are rife with trouble though. While most of us are giddy at the chance of getting O’Reilly, it’s a fear of what we are losing.

Trading Thomas seems to make little sense because he’s supposed to be the Blues third line center right now. The Blues need O’Reilly because they are already thin up the middle. So, you trade a promising center?

This is the price of business, sadly. There is no way the Blues are not going to give something up that will upset us.

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Hopefully, they find a way to minimize creating depth problems. You don’t want to fill a hole at the top of your lineup just to make more holes further down the roster.

We will see how it all shakes up. The Blues have to make some changes and free agency is extremely thin. You have to be smart about depleting your current roster for the big name too.