Now that the 2022 NHL trade deadline has passed for the St. Louis Blues, fans can get back to what they do best – blaming the goaltending for everything. I kid, though only partially.
In reality, the dust has settled and we can settle back into reality. I’m one of the few people that actually prefers that.
It is fun to fantasize about new players coming into your team, almost like trading player cards to make a fantasy team. However, more often than not, we all get caught up in that fantasy world and reality isn’t at all what we hoped.
Maybe not the majority, but there were a lot of Blues fans that got their hopes bound up in a deal for Jakob Chychrun from the Arizona Coyotes. With no insider information, I still maintain that was probably a pipe dream, but there had to have been interest from the Blues. There was too much reporting involving the Blues name for Doug Armstrong not to have kicked the tires at all.
Ultimately, the deal did not happen and St. Louis picked up Nick Leddy. He’s still a good player with tread left on the tires, to keep the theme going, but he’s a few steps down in talent and a few steps up when it comes to age.
Nevertheless, the Blues were right not to acquire Chychrun now (maybe ever? We’ll see on that). That statement has little to do with his injury status either.
There are three key reasons the Blues were right to not take on the Coyotes big asset.