The NHL's trade deadline has come and gone and, for all the players the St. Louis Blues could've traded, only two major pieces have found new homes. Jordan Binnington, Jordan Kyrou, and Robert Thomas all remain in St. Louis--though trade talks involving those players could resume as soon as this summer. Still, the assets acquired do a good job to kickstart a rebuild that's been a long time coming.
This deadline feels different than the one three years ago, when the Blues embarked on something of a retool. At the 2023 deadline, GM Doug Armstrong traded Ryan O'Reilly to the Toronto Maple Leafs, among other things, and acquired a first-round pick as part of the return; Armstrong also sent Vladimir Tarasenko to the New York Rangers and snagged another first-round pick. Armstrong almost traded one of those picks to acquire Travis Sanheim, though that deal fell through because Torey Krug invoked his no-trade clause--a situation the Blues once again experienced this year. The Blues ended up selecting Otto Stenberg and Theo Lindstein with that draft capital.
What's different this time, though, is the contract situations of the outgoing players: Justin Faulk has one year beyond this remaining, and Brayden Schenn has two more seasons on his deal. O'Reilly and Tarasenko were pending unrestricted free agents that the Blues had decided not to re-sign. Sending those two players out for future assets, in theory, set the Blues up for a retool, rather than a teardown rebuild.
How things have changed three years on. The Blues are hovering around the bottom of the league's standings and have traded their captain, Schenn, and Faulk, who wore an "A" on his sweater. The retool didn't work, and the Blues could be in for a multi-year rebuild. Trading Schenn and Faulk is, at least, a good start.
There's a world where the Blues manage to leverage their draft capital and execute a trade or two to bolster their current roster, taking advantage of the primes of Kyrou and Thomas--but given all the trade smoke around those two (and Thomas in particular), that seems unlikely. As for Binnington, it seems clear that the crease has become Joel Hofer's to lose.
If we're staring down the barrel of a multi-year, painful rebuild, incoming general manager Alex Steen is not going to have an easy start to his tenure. Steen taking the reins is a chance for a fresh start for the Blues as they embark on this next era. Whether it's a rebuild that involves shipping out more players, or a retool that threads the needle of acquiring young, high-end talent while hanging on to players like Thomas and Kyrou, the organization has a tough road ahead either way. Whichever road they choose, yesterday's deadline marked the start of that journey.