St. Louis Blues: 6 Players That Could Be Traded Before Christmas
The St. Louis Blues are at the bottom of the NHL in standings and the most realistic move the Blues could make is selling off key pieces of the roster.
The St. Louis Blues already fired Mike Yeo and though it is still early in the Craig Berube era, the Blues have not shown any improvement and are still making the same careless mistakes.
That leads us to the very real possibility that the Blues could sell off a good portion of the NHL roster. This is something that the Blues have not needed to do in a long time and it is has left the team in a bad spot as an organization.
St. Louis has always been at the top of the Central Division and even though they sold last season by trading Paul Stastny, they have not been sellers at the trade deadline in recent memory.
I’ll talk about six different players that could potentially be traded this season, but I will start with some players that just missed the cut and could stick around for the rest of the year.
Jay Bouwmeester, in all of his glory, just missed the list for me. Bouwmeester is closer to being cut then he is being traded. The only reason why I say this is because of his declining performance and his age.
I have a hard time believing that anyone would be willing to take on a 35-year-old declining defenseman who makes $5.4 million a year.
I wrote about Carl Gunnarsson and the possibility of trading him before the season started, but his age and the injury history will also likely indicate that the Blues will not find a suitor for Gunnarsson.
Tyler Bozak
The Blues acquired Bozak via free agency and gave him a three-year contract worth $15 million and so far this season, he has been less than good for St. Louis. Bozak was the most expensive contract the Blues gave out over the offseason, second to acquiring Ryan O’Reilly‘s $7.5 million contract from the Buffalo Sabres.
He has 11 points in 22 games so far this season and granted, he was not expected to be near the top of the Blues team in scoring, but there are other parts of the game that need improvement.
His best season came with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2016-2017 when he put up a 55 point season scoring 18 goals and 37 assists.
It wasn’t his offensive abilities that appealed to general manager Doug Armstrong. Bozak has been one of the best players in the faceoff circle over his career. He has been over 50% in the circle every year of his career except for one.
The Blues are deep in the center position, if the Blues gave up Bozak they would be left with O’Reilly, Brayden Schenn, Robert Thomas, Robby Fabbri, and Ivan Barbashev who would be capable of filling Bozak’s role.
It’s unlikely that the Blues trade their third line center, especially one that is making $5 million a year. However, teams are always looking for centers and the Blues have one of the best in the faceoff circle.
The biggest issue with moving Bozak is his no-trade clause. It is not a full no-trade, but Bozak can choose 10 teams to put on his list that are acceptable trade partners.
Pat Maroon
This trade may sting the most to Blues fans. The St. Louisan signed a one year, $1.75 million deal with the intentions of signing him to an extension if he played well enough in his hometown.
This is probably the most expendable piece that the Blues have to offer. With his contract and the experience of the big rig, Maroon could be the target of a contending team who needs veteran leadership.
Maroon only has eight points on the season, and seven of them have come on the powerplay. While the importance of a big body on the powerplay cannot be understated, it would be nice to see Maroon contribute more at full strength.
Injuries have also been the story of Maroon’s season so far. Maroon was supposed to solve a roll that was left by David Backes. He was supposed to be an enforcer and a guy who was supposed to be a force on the powerplay. To his credit, he has done the latter.
The biggest reason why Maroon cracks the list is because of his contract. We have seen in the past that he can excel offensively when he is paired with top-tier talent. He scored as many as 27 goals two years ago while playing with Connor McDavid in Edmonton but he has not performed the same with players like Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz.
I would be sad to see the big rig go, he has an infectious personality and it is great to see that he gets to play in his hometown. However, he would be a low-risk-high-reward player for someone who wants to take a flyer on him for a low draft pick.
Jake Allen
Yes, Jake Allen. Now, it is important to note that the Blues will probably not move on from their number one goalie without someone to replace him. Ville Husso is not ready and I would have a hard time imagining that the team would be comfortable letting Chad Johnson be the top guy in St. Louis.
Allen is making $4.35 million for the next three seasons, but it is not the contract that will be the biggest thing to move, but the play of Allen that may shy some teams away from approaching DA about Allen.
A team like the Philadelphia Flyers come to mind as a likely suitor for Allen. The Flyers have gone through goalies like candy on Halloween this season and in an attempt to salvage the season, Allen could use a change in scenery.
Jake has been a pretty good regular season goalie, but his struggles with inconsistency and lack of performances in the playoffs have given Blues fans plenty of ammunition to use against the netminder.
It would take the Blues losing two of every three games for the Blues to even think about moving on from Allen. There were rumors over the offseason that the Blues may have been shopping Allen, but it isn’t like St. Louis to move on from their starting goalie in the middle of the season.
Brayden Schenn
Go ahead, raise your eyebrows, shake your head, do whatever you need to do to keep reading because I’m not sure it is out of the realm of possibility that Schenn gets dealt.
Schenn has been one of the Blues best players since being acquired from the Flyers. He does everything right both offensively and defensively and along with Schwartz, they have been one of the best duos in the NHL.
Schenn would give the Blues the biggest return. He is under contract for another season and is earning $5.1 million a year. This is a steal for the type of production the Blues are getting and a potential package for Schenn would reflect that.
This is the most unlikely player to get traded that will be mentioned in this piece, but if the Blues are serious about restarting and selling off players, a Schenn trade would really shake up the entire organization.
Any team that would acquire Schenn would become instantly better. He would make a middling playoff team a contender and a Stanley Cup ready team, a surefire champion.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Schenn and he is one of my favorite Blue, but if the Blues choose to rebuild, Schenn would be a good place to start.
Colton Parayko
With Colton Parayko, it seems like you either love him, or you hate him. Regardless of how you feel about number 55, he will be one of the most talked about players in the entire league that could be traded.
Parayko was one of the best rookie defensemen in Blues history but after a slow start to the season this year, Parayko has left people wondering if we have already seen the best of him.
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Just six points so far this year, Blues fans have been dying to see his offensive production increase but they have been disappointed.
Parayko has been hovering around the 33-35 point mark to being his young career and it’s likely that it is his potential moving forward.
But it is not the offense that is getting Blues fans frustrated. It looks like his defensive ability has dropped off as well. On the season, Parayko is a +4 but like many Blues defensemen, it seems like they have forgotten how to protect the puck.
The fan-favorite is making $5.5 million a year and is under contract for the next three years. I’m sure many NHL executives are high on Parayko, so trading the big defenseman could garner a big return for St. Louis.
Alex Steen
The whipping boy for Blues fans since, well, ever. Steen is making $5.75 million a year (which is fourth most on the team) and has a full no-trade clause. So even if the Blues wanted to trade him, Steen would have to approve any trade.
Steen is still one of the better two-way forwards in the league and up until the arrival of O’Reilly, he was the best defensive forward on the team.
His offensive output has steadily declined over the past four seasons, and although we thought that Steen may excel as a third line forward, this has not been the case so far this season.
The former Maple Leaf has five goals and five assists this season and even though he has not been counted on to light up the scoreboard this year, the offensive production is worrisome.
Steen is one of the most obvious Blues to get traded this season, and there are a lot of things that need to go right for the St. Louis in order to make it happen including the waiving of his no-trade clause.
The return for Steen may not be anything significant, but exploring a trade for Steen is a must for Armstrong and the Blues.
Next. Fans Got What They Wanted When Yeo Was Fired. dark
The Blues could rattle off a seven-game winning streak and in a month we could be looking at players the Blues could acquire. However, right now, the Blues are in a very sticky situation and something clearly needs to change.