The St. Louis Blues have done a great job of locking up core players for the foreseeable future, especially during this "rebuilding" phase. They have a solid hockey club, with a very positive upside and at the moment are one of the NHL's hottest teams.
But, with the possibility of making the playoffs becoming more real with each passing game, do the Blues go all in on a season that didn't plan on going like this? There is one way of doing that, which is to be a buyer at the trade deadline in March and get that last necessary piece of the puzzle.
Opposite of that, if there is a player that has an expiring deal, that they want to sell off to another team for a draft pick, there is one player in mind that they could use. Radek Faksa is a player who could be dumped off to another team that could eat up his expiring $3.25 million deal. The Blues only have around $470,000 in salary cap space, meaning that they have to make some wiggle room, sooner rather than later. They are projected to have $1.9 million in space next season, according to puckpedia.com.
Why trade Faksa, and what can they get for him?
Simply put, he is a marvelous player with a strong 200-foot game and excellent numbers at the faceoff dot. But, he has a very steep price tag for a player that has only potted a set of goals and added five assists in 28 games of action this season. If he could take a home-town discount before hitting the free agent market in 2025-26, like a one-year, $1 million deal, then he can absolute stay on this roster.
Faksa could return some necessary draft picks. The Blues, depending on their ability to maintain their winning ways, may not be a lottery team at the end of this season. That being said, they only have one first-round pick and not another pick until the fifth-round in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft. That is a good place to start.
To replace Feksa on the fourth line is a call-up to the Springfield Thunderbirds' best player and Blues first-round pick in 2023, Dalibor Dvorsky. He has been excellent in the American Hockey League, with 10 goals and eight assists for 18 points in 22 games. It might be time to see what the youngblood has got.
Should the Blues explore a trade involving Faksa?