In terms of offseason necessities, the St. Louis Blues don't have a ton they absolutely have to take care of. The team really only has three pending free agents.
Radek Faksa and Ryan Suter are unrestricted free agents and Joel Hofer is a restricted free agent. Hofer isn't going anywhere unless the Blues really think that Colten Ellis is ready and the other two were brought in as stop-gap players anyway.
However, given the immense success of the Blues fourth line at the end of the 2024-25 regular season and into the playoffs, I make the case that the Blues should re-sign Faksa. Of course, this all rests on the idea that the price would be right for both the player and the team.
Faksa had a cap hit of $3.25 million this past season. That would need to come down for this to make any sense.
If the Blues kept Faksa, they would also need to trade someone since they still need to make space for upcoming players, such as Dalibor Dvorsky. In my proposal, I would attempt to keep Faksa at a lowered price and trade Oskar Sundqvist.
This isn't something I would take lightly. Sunny has given his heart and soul to the Blues whenever he's been on the ice and we've seen, for whatever reason, he's an immeasurably better player in a Bluenote than he has been for Pittsburgh or Minnesota.
Sundqvist is a year younger and already on a cheaper contract with a cap hit of $1.5 million. You can easily make a good case to just slot him on the fourth line, save the money and move on with life.
My reasoning for keeping Faksa is that he currently fits what the Blues need better. Firstly, he's a true center.
Sunny is more than capable of playing center and does a good job, but he had a faceoff percentage of 45.5% this past season and took almost 200 fewer draws than Faksa. Even as a fourth liner, Faksa won 432 faceoffs, with a winning percentage of 57%.
The Blues need guys that can win faceoffs. When the team struggled, it felt like the inability to win faceoffs was a big part of their inability to get things going.
Additionally, although Sundqvist is a bigger player, Faksa was the more physical player in 2024-25. He had 115 regular season hits compared to 78 for Sunny. Sundqvist was slightly more physical in the playoffs, but I'd still give a slight edge to Faksa.
The stats are kind of a wash. Faksa had five goals and 15 points compared to six goals and 20 points for Sundqvist.
The hope would be that whoever you allow into Sundqvist's slot will be an offensive upgrade anyway, which would negate the argument between the two bottom six players anyway.
In addition to the items listed, the benefit from sticking with Faksa instead of Sundqvist would be that Sundqvist has potential trade value. Even if you only get a later round draft pick, that's more than you get from letting a player walk in free agency.
The Blues fourth line was their most consistent and defensively reliable down the stretch in 2025. Keeping that trio together allows you to focus solely on building more offense further up the roster.
Personally, I'm not ready to hand the keys to Dvorsky at the center position, so you may need to make other moves. Perhaps you add a third-line center with gas still in the tank that can put Dvorsky under his wing similar to what Tyler Bozak did with Robert Thomas.
Even if you roll the dice with Dvorsky at center, I still think that's enough of a quality upgrade offensively and you may just need to put more veteran wingers with him. That would be up to Jim Montgomery to figure out the best combinations.
If the Blues let Faksa walk, I have no issues with Sundqvist staying. They're slightly similar players with no big difference in age. The money thing isn't that big an issue because any rookies the Blues bring onto the roster are going to offset most of the salary difference and the cap is going up anyway.
Neither Sunny or Faksa is the fleetest of foot, so you're not giving the speed edge to either one. I just think Faksa provides better faceoff potential, equal scoring and a proven record with the guys you're likely to pencil onto your fourth line just about every game anyway.