The St. Louis Blues may or may not make any further deals as the trade deadline approaches. With each new trade made, however, it seems like staying out of that market is best.
The St. Louis Blues have always done what they felt was right for their team, especially in recent years. Two seasons ago, the team was floundering, so they traded away Paul Stastny. In the spring of 2019, the team stood pat since they felt they had something special going. Clearly they did.
However, this year’s trade deadline is a bit different. If the Blues had things in a vacuum, they likely would want to add another scorer even with the team sitting on top of the Western Conference.
It is a seller’s market, though, right now. And it was the trade of a recent team captain that, at least for me, solidified the idea that the Blues need to have nothing to do with this current trade market.
For those unaware, David Backes was recently packaged as part of a deal that saw he, prospect Axel Andersson and a 2020 first-round draft pick go to the Anaheim Ducks. The Boston Bruins received Ondrej Kase.
Of course, given the mixed feelings some still have regarding Backes, that muddies the water about the price. Some will see it as the Bruins not giving up much since Backes was not even technically an NHLer since he had been demoted to the AHL.
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Still, take the name out of it and you’re sending an NHL caliber player, a former second-round draftee and a first-round pick in 2020. Regardless of talent, that’s a decent price to pay.
Kashe (pronounced Kah-shuh, for those interested) is currently a third or fourth line player. He has plenty of talent, but there is still a lot of questions as to whether that talent will emerge.
He came out hot as a sophomore scoring 20 goals and 38 points. Injuries limited him last season, though he had 11 goals in 30 games. Still, in 49 games in 2019-20, he has seven goals. So, is he regressing due to injury or was the one season a fluke? We don’t know.
What we do know is, the Bruins gave up three pieces for one player that might or might not pan out. With the Blues in a similar situation of having the luxury of talent that only needs supplementation, the urge will be to go down the same road, but it is not a road I want to take.
Say what you will about Backes, but that is still an NHL player who had just been squeezed out due to his salary and also the fact Boston had a good deal of young talent come up at the same time. I will be surprised if he does not stay in the NHL with the Ducks.
Who knows what Andersson will be. Still, second round picks can be solid NHL players just as often as not.
Then, there’s the first-round pick. Boston might not be too concerned with it since it will be at the bottom of the first round, just the same as the Blues pick would likely be.
You can only tap into the trade market so often before you have nothing left to trade if you are constantly giving out your draft picks. Also, if you are never replenishing your farm system with top talent, eventually you either have to overspend in the free agent market or go through a painful rebuild because you don’t have young talent waiting in the wings any longer.
Additionally, this was a trade for potential (and also for Boston to shred Backes’ contract). Names like Chris Kreider are known commodities. As ESPN pointed out, Boston went for Kashe because that’s the cheaper option.
Put the current Boston trade in Blues terms and the Blues would have given up either Troy Brouwer or Makenzie MacEachern, Scott Perunovich (2018 second round pick) and their first pick in an upcoming draft. Also for comparison’s sake, the Blues would only get someone the caliber of Sammy Blais or maybe Tyler Bozak based on ice time or production. As much as we love those guys, that’s still a lot to give up for not enough return.
Now, amplify that by quite a bit. For someone like Kreider, who consistently scores 20 goals – we can argue about the value of 20 goals in a different article – and think about what that will cost.
As I’ve said in different articles, you’re likely talking a name like Jordan Kyrou or Klim Kostin and maybe both. If you’re only giving up one player, you’re either going to give up a high prospect or top draft picks in multiple drafts.
Even if you want to argue that someone like Kreider or anyone else currently listed as available is worth that, the Blues would only have them for a couple months and then they lose everything. We would all love to see another Stanley Cup win, but is it worth it to give up on Cup runs over the next handful of years for one push this year? That’s all you’d be getting.
Unless Doug Armstrong pulls a rabbit out of his hat and finds some other name nobody thought was available, none of these top-six forwards would be coming back in 2020-21. The Blues simply do not have the cap space available next season, even if you tried to take Jay Bouwmeester out of the equation.
Or, if you did manage to re-sign Kreider or any of these other forwards, would you be OK with that person essentially replacing Alex Pietrangelo? You’re sure not keeping both.
I get this want for more goals, I do. But it is such a short-term fix to a problem that barely exists that the long-term price is not worth it.
Even if Kyrou only managed to be the next David Perron, is that worth giving up on for the next five or six years just for two or three months of some new player that might go cold at the wrong time and not help at all? No thank you.
Hopefully, Backes has provided one last service to the Blues. Hopefully that deal will help them realize that the price for players this spring is far too high and the product gained in return is not good enough.
Stay out of this trade market. Maybe I’m in the minority, but this will be one trade deadline I actually hope will go by without a peep from the Blues.