St. Louis Blues: Top 5 Trade Targets For The 2020 Season

The St. Louis Blues are heading into the 2019-20 season with almost the same team as their Stanley Cup-winning roster, but it doesn’t have to stay like that.

It’s hard to tell if this year’s version of the St. Louis Blues has many flaws. The team has barely played four preseason games, but if we look at the career norms for the active players on the team, we might be able to guesstimate some potential issues.

Like any conversation regarding the Blues and adding players to the roster, it’s important to recognize that the team will be unable to make any moves without trading from the current NHL roster.

St. Louis has almost zero money to spend on new talent, and they currently have just over $400k left in cap space. This number, however, will go up once the final roster is set and players who contribute to the cap with NHL salaries, go down to the AHL, and as a result, the money will be cleared up.

Still, the team is looking at about $2 million in cap space once the puck drops against the Washington Capitals on October 2.

A common direction to point your finger at is forward Alex Steen and backup goalie Jake Allen. St. Louis has stated repeatedly that they have every intention of keeping Allen on the roster to play with Jordan Binnington, but the rest of the roster could be fair game.

This isn’t to say that the Blues are going to end up trading Ryan O’Reilly or Vladimir Tarasenko, but don’t think it’s out of the question to see some other big names mentioned in trade rumors if the Blues struggle this year.

Without knowing how well the Blues will play during the upcoming season, and not knowing what players will be available, let’s look at five players who the Blues could potentially acquire.

If the Blues wanted to move on from Allen in the middle of the season, trading for Louis Domingue would be a great start in ensuring that your backup goalie situation will be handled correctly.

Domingue is in a predicament with the Tampa Bay Lightning as he has found himself in the middle of a goalie surplus. The Bolts have arguably the best goalie on the planet in Andrei Vasilevksiy and the team also signed former Hurricane Curtis McElhinney to a two-year deal this offseason.

The 27-year-old goaltender will likely have to find himself a new organization once the season starts and teams get a better look at the goaltenders they have now, but don’t let the fact that the Lightning will let him go fool you, because he is a viable backup.

Domingue was drafted by the Phoenix Coyotes in the fifth round of the 2010 NHL Draft and spent the first four and a half seasons with the Coyotes before being acquired by Tampa Bay in 2017.

The Quebec native has a career record of 55-49-8 and has allowed 2.96 goals per game and has stopped .907% of the shots he has faced in 122 career games.

His career with Tampa has been much more beneficial than his stint with the Coyotes. It may be a result of playing with a better team, but in his two seasons with the Lightning, he has posted a 28-8-1 record with a .910 SV% and has allowed 2.88 GAA.

Domingue and McElhinney were one of the main reasons why I would have been okay with the Blues trading Allen this summer. There are plenty of viable goaltenders on the market, and with the goalie cluster in Tampa, Domingue might come cheap.

With Pat Maroon leaving for Tampa Bay, the Blues could use some fight and although Robert Bortuzzo has no issues dropping the gloves every once in a while, bringing back Ryan Reaves could help tremendously.

The Blues traded Reaves to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017 in what turned out to be one of the best trades made by Doug Armstrong in recent memory. St. Louis sent Reaves and a second-round pick to Pittsburgh for Oskar Sundqvist and a first-round pick, which was used to draft Klim Kostin.

St. Louis could go full circle on the trade and re-acquire Reaves from Pittsburgh to solidify their forward core. Blues fans will forever love reaves for his physical demeanor and presence on the ice.

However, since his time in Vegas, the 32-year-old has found his offensive touch. In 477 games before being acquired by the Golden Knights, Reaves had netted just 32 goals. In the two years spent with Vegas, he has recorded nine scores.

I’m not trying to imply that the Blues would be acquiring a player with major offensive upside, but what I am saying is that in addition to his physical mantra, you might get some scoring here and there.

St. Louis should have no problem fitting Reaves into their salary cap. He is entering the final year of his contract with Vegas and is earning $2.775 million this season.

Trading for Reaves would likely mean that the Golden Knights are out of the race, but even if Vegas is in the thick of things in the Pacific, St. Louis could still sweeten up the deal to ensure a trade.

The potential addition of Barclay Goodrow is not sexy at all, and acquiring him from the San Jose Sharks would be a pure depth move, and nothing more. We saw a little what Goodrow could do when the Blues faced him in the Western Conference Finals, but he is a solid player.

He hasn’t found his scoring touch at the NHL level, but playing in the AHL, Goodrow has been a proven 20-goal scorer. This doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot unless you can find the back of the net consistently in the NHL.

We’ve been saying the same thing with Sundqvist up until last season. Sunny had been a great minor league player but had yet to put it together on the biggest stage. Grabbing Goodrow from the Sharks could have a similar impact on Goodrow as it did with Sundqvist when the Blues acquired him from Pittsburgh.

Goodrow is 26 years old and has to years remaining on his contract. The forward is owed just $925k during the next two seasons and could prove to be a solid add if the Blues had suffered injury problems.

The Ontario native has not recorded more than seven goals in a season during his five year NHL career, but like Reaves, that’s not what he brings to the table.

His physical presence would bring a breath of fresh air to the Blues roster, and we saw how important big bodies can be during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Maroon wasted no time showing his new employer what he was all about, as in his first preseason game as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning, he dropped the gloves with Predators winger Austin Watson.

Blues fans know very well what Maroon brings to the table, and it was painful for a lot of fans to watch Maroon leave for the Bay Area. However, he is signed at a very low price which could open up a potential return.

Maroon is locked up at just $900k, and after what we saw from the Big Rig last season, this price will be a steal. A guy like Maroon is precisely what the Lightning have been missing, and it might be difficult to pry him away from Tampa.

However, if the Blues look up in January and have a clear and obvious need for a big body like his, it won’t be the worst thing in the world to give the Lightning a call looking to reacquire him.

The problem with this is part of the reason why the Blues let him walk in the first place. While there is a prominent spot for Maroon on the current roster, he is blocking chances for younger players.

Kostin is a perfect example of this. He currently leads the club in points this preseason, and I’m not sure he gets as much attention if Maroon is still on the roster.

As much as I would love to see Maroon in a Blue note, and I do think he would be a valuable addition to the 2020 roster, it still blocks some of the younger players and prohibits them from showcasing their skills.