St. Louis Blues Should Take A Flier On Alexander Barabanov If Price Right

While the St. Louis Blues wait to see if 2019-20 will ever restart, they also have to look to their future. They might want to gauge interest from a player out of the KHL.

The St. Louis Blues are definitely in an odd spot right now. The players, and even the front office to an extend, still need to be focused on a potential finish to the 2019-20 season, even if it is only a truncated playoff system.

That said, you cannot ignore the future, as uncertain as it might be. The Blues have to make preparations for 2020-21 and beyond and look at all avenues for improving the team regardless of whether 2019-20 ever comes to an end.

The Blues are pretty set with all their main players signed through 2021 and the only free agents being restricted. The only forward who is unrestricted is Troy Brouwer and Klim Kostin should be ready to fill that spot by next season.

Even with all that in mind, the St. Louis Blues might want to at least kick the tires on Russian free agent Alexander Barabanov. Barabanov finished up his most recent stint in the KHL and has expressed an interest in coming to North America, most notably the NHL.

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The feeling is apparently mutual. Multiple reports have as many as 20 or more teams showing interest in the forward. Many believe the Toronto Maple Leafs are at the front of that list and Barabanov might have already whittled his own list down to three teams.

Regardless, the Blues should at least throw their name in a hat. It can’t hurt to try.

Some will question whether the Blues have the salary cap room to fit him in. Honestly, I do not fully comprehend how that works.

It has to depend on whether he’s available to play this season or would have to wait until 2020-21. If he can play this season, then cap space can’t really matter if the Maple Leafs are in on him. CapFriendly lists them as having no projected cap space and only $92,294 available in long term injury relief.

That’s not enough room for him even at a minimum contract. For comparison, last season the Leafs signed Ilya Mikheyev from the KHL around the same time frame and he had a contract of $925,000.

According to this article on roster limits, once the trade deadline is over, you can have as many players as you want on your active NHL roster, as long as they are part of your 50 player franchise limit. That article does not say how that all ties into salary cap however, but the Blues currently have 47 contracts.

It should be noted that Barabanov is slightly undersized. ProHockeyRumors listed him at 5’8, 159 lbs while EliteProspects has him at 5’10, 179 lbs. Also, his stats do not light the world on fire as his career high is 17 goals – 20 if you include playoff goals.

However, sometimes you never know and you might still get something valuable. Vladimir Sobotka‘s best season prior to coming across the Atlantic was seven goals in the highest Czech league. He was not a prolific scorer, but he turned into an excellent sparkplug player.

If you want to go really high end, Artemi Panarin‘s best year in the KHL was 26 goals. He immediately improved on that once he joined a very talented Chicago Blackhawks team. Barabanov would be joining a talented Blues team, should that happen.

If nothing else, the Blues should at least talk to Vladimir Tarasenko about him. In most cases it is unwise to take acquisition advice from a player, but the Blues missed out on signing Panarin because they ignored Tarasenko’s advice.

When it comes to Russian players, at least getting the input of a Russian player would make sense.

All of that in mind, it all boils down to price. Taking a flier on this guy only makes sense if you can get him for around the same price as the Maple Leafs did for Mikheyev and for a couple seasons.

The Blues would also need some sort of guarantee he’s coming over. As of right now, he’s just interested.

If the price was right and Barabanov was interested, the Blues should be interested. Given his stats, he should not break the bank.

A reasonable contract, even if only applied to next season, would give the Blues freedom. If he flames out, you’re not on the hook for long and could even put him on waivers as a worst case scenario.

If he turned out to be a diamond in the rough, suddenly you have a possible middle-six forward available for 2021-22 when there would be a lot more roster uncertainty.

Ultimately, if I had to guess, I would not hold my breath on the Blues showing real interest. They seem confident in their group, plus the one or two prospects that are NHL ready.

You never know with Doug Armstrong though. Nobody expected him to make a flashy trade on the cusp of the 2019-20 season and he pulled that out of his hat. If the price is right, take a look.