The last few hours have been nuts for St. Louis Blues fans, to say the least. They have been even worse for the Buffalo Sabres’ faithful.
On Wednesday night, everyone thought that Colton Parayko’s departure to Buffalo was a fait accompli. No questions about it. There was only the matter of paperwork needed to formally waive Parayko’s no-trade clause to Buffalo.
No worries, right? Earlier in the evening, a similar situation occurred with the Utah Mammoth. News had broken that they had struck a deal with the Calgary Flames for MacKenzie Weegar. The deal went through with Weegar officially waiving his no-trade clause to complete the trade.
But when it came to Parayko, it was crickets. It wasn’t until Thursday morning that reports surfaced positing that the 32-year-old had nixed the deal to Buffalo.
That was a major thud on both sides. But now, insight has emerged from insider Kevin Weekes. According to the notable personality, Parayko didn’t want to go East. His preference was to stay on the West Coast.
Update Re @StLouisBlues D Parayko,
— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) March 5, 2026
I’m told his preference as of now is
to stay in the West, and he’s open to
the @LAKings and @AnaheimDucks
among potential landing spots.#HockeyX pic.twitter.com/n19TVEVXMr
If that’s indeed the case, this deal looks bad on both the Sabres and the Blues. In short, both sides should have done their due diligence before pulling the trigger on the deal.
But then again, being the devil’s advocate, the news got a little out of hand before the deal was officially finalized. It was just the NHL world buzzing in anticipation of the next big trade.
Whatever the case, the optics of this entire situation don’t look too good. Now, it will be up to the Blues to figure out what to do next.
Blues may still work out with one of Parayko’s preferred choices
Well, here’s the thing about working out a deal with one of Parayko’s preferred choices. The Blues now have zero leverage. By nixing the deal, Parayko cut out the Blues’ legs from under them. The club can’t go to Anaheim, for instance, and say, “give us a top prospect, a first-round pick, and two mid-round picks.”
The Ducks can just come back and say, “We’ll give you this, take it or leave it.”
It’s pretty much what Artemi Panarin did to the New York Rangers. He painted them into a corner with his no-trade clause. The only thing the Rangers could do was work out the best possible deal.
Now, it could be that the best thing the Blues can do is just hold onto Parayko and hope there aren’t any hard feelings. The Blues could revisit a deal in the offseason, anticipating that things might have changed by then.