The St. Louis Blues have a lot of hits and plenty of misses in the trade market over their 50-plus years in the NHL. However, history has shown us that trading with Montreal almost never works out for The Note.
The value of a trade in professional sports is often something that cannot be properly judged until all parties involved wrap up their careers, even though we all do it the minute the first report comes out. The St. Louis Blues have had plenty that seemed alright at the time and ended up as stinkers and vice versa. However, some just do not work out at all.
For context, we will start off with the highlights. The Blues acquiring Jaroslav Halak from the Montreal Canadiens for Lars Eller and Ian Schultz.
Eller has turned into an OK NHL player with 116 goals and 255 points in 10 years. He would have been a serviceable third line player had he stayed.
However, despite falling squarely into the category almost all Blues goaltenders fell into with fans, Halak was never as bad as the loud ones would have you believe. He ended with 83-47-19 as his record and a goals against of 2.23 and a save percentage of .916. He’s also second in franchise history with 20 shutouts.
Anyway, this is not a Halak article. That just shows you, given the popular opinion of Halak among most fans, how well trades have gone with Montreal.
The only other trade you could say the Blues won with Montreal was one in 1985. St. Louis picked up Mark Hunter, Michael Dark and four draft picks, one of which became Nelson Emerson. Montreal got four draft picks, the only one of note ending up being Donald Dufresne.
Dufresne had a sub-par career and ended up playing for the Blues briefly anyway. Hunter scored 112 goals in three seasons for the Blues and Emerson had a solid career, even if most of it was spent bouncing around the league.
However, the larger point is the Blues gave up so much to the Canadiens that it is somewhat laughable. We often made jokes, prior to finally winning one, that you had to play in St. Louis and then go elsewhere to win the Stanley Cup.
The Blues made such a habit out of losing out on stellar players that they were known for it. You could almost argue the all-time team of players the Blues dealt away might be better than their own all-time team.
It gets even worse when you lump in the draft picks Montreal ended up fleecing the Blues out of.
Trading draft picks is always such a weird thing. At the time, people shrug it off because you don’t know who will be available or what they will become. That was even more the thinking back in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s before so many teams were built through good draft picks.
Montreal sure built their teams on the backs of Blues draft picks. That is to say picks that could have belonged to the Blues.
This entire idea comes from The Hockey Guy, who flat out said the Blues should go with a policy of if Montreal calls and only asks for draft picks in a trade, the Blues should hang up. You can check out his entire video here.
One that will be hard to argue with Blues fans, but needs to be included is the 1973 trade at the draft. St. Louis and Montreal swapped first round picks, with the Blues selecting John Davidson and Montreal getting Bob Gainey.
Davidson was a decent goaltender, but made his name in New York. Gainey went into the Hall of Fame, won the Selke four times and also a Conn Smythe. St. Louis did draft Bob Gassoff with one of the later picks, but while he is revered in St. Louis, it seems unlikely he would have had Gainey’s career.
In 1974, the Canadiens sent Dave Gardner to the Blues and drafted Doug Risebrough with the draft pick acquired. Gardner had all of nine points with the Blues and Risebrough had more points with Montreal than Gardner did in his entire career and won four Cups.
August of 1977 saw the Blues acquire Jimmy Roberts. Roberts would become a hugely popular player in two stints with the Blues, but the draft pick given up saw Montreal acquire Guy Carbonneau. Roberts was a fine player and nobody has anything against him, but Carbonneau scored over 200 goals and more than 500 points in his career with the Canadiens alone. He would have been available for the Blues to take.
It seemed like the Blues might have finally won a deal in 1985. The Blues got Rick Wamsley and three picks for two picks.
Wamsely won a decent amount of games in goal for the Blues and helped them to a conference finals appearance. The Blues also drafted Brian Benning, Tony Hrkac and Robert Dirk with their picks.
Benning was alright. Hrkac showed flashes, but could not stay in an NHL lineup long enough. Dirk was a defensive defender who did more elsewhere. Still, not bad right?
Wrong. Montreal drafted Shayne Corson and Stephane Richer.
Montreal got the best out of Corson both before and after his stint in St. Louis as he never gelled with Brett Hull or Mike Keenan. Richer won a Stanley Cup in Montreal and had two 50 goal seasons within his 400-plus points with the Canadiens. It’s not as though he couldn’t make it work elsewhere either, as he won a Cup in New Jersey too.
Hey, he had a decent half season as a rental player with the Blues. That’s some consolation, right?
Ah, but it gets worse. In 1987, the Blues swapped picks for that year and the following year with Montreal.
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All you need to know is that 1987 draft pick ended up being John LeClair. LeClair’s best years were in Philadelphia, but he was still a solid depth player on the Montreal team that won in 1993 and a big reason why Philadelphia was a beast in the east in the mid-90’s. Also, he had over 800 points and was one of the best all-around American players in recent history.
St. Louis thought they won the short term of the deal in 1988 by getting Sergio Momesso and Vincent Riendeau. However, Momesso lasted three years before going to Vancouver and Riendeau was a placeholder before Curis Joseph. Montreal drafted Patrice Brisebois, who played 18 years in the league and scored over 400 points as a defender.
In 1989, the Blues tried to turn the tables by trading Todd Ewen and using the draft pick on Nathan LaFayette. LaFayette did nothing in the league and Ewen was a popular player and good enforcer for the time.
It would not be until 1996 when the Blues would finally get the better of a deal. There were hockey trades that only included players that went 50/50, but the Blues picked up Pierre Turgeon, Craig Conroy and Rory Fitzpatrick for Murray Baron, Corson and a draft pick that became Gennady Razin.
Razin never played a game in the NHL. Turgeon and Conroy were mainstays in the Blues lineup and combined for 506 points for the Blues.
Still, a couple deals in St. Louis’ favor do not wipe out all the missed opportunities. We all thought missing out on Johnathan Toews was bad, but Montreal got some great players that could have been with the Blues, perhaps should have been.
One can argue there is no proof the Blues would have selected these people. You cannot simply slot them into a St. Louis roster because they were there.
Different front offices value different things. Nevertheless, the mere fact they could have been there and would have been available for the Blues to take had they not sent those picks to the Canadiens is enough.
As The Hockey Guy said, as soon as draft picks came into the conversation, the Blues should have hung up. The Blues won and lost a lot of trades over the years, but anything done with Montreal always managed to turn to gold for the Canadiens.
Things might be different in 2019, but the Blues should still go with that simple idea. If Montreal comes calling and only wants draft picks, they are going to get the better end of the deal, so it might be better long term to politely decline.