Blues 2024 Off-Season Trade Proposals Thread

[bleedblue1223]

If we do trade Faulk or Parayko, Marino would be another option to target.

I'm curious if the draft will be hectic with teams trying to gain cap space for free agency or like other drafts where lots of rumors, and little activity once the show starts.

 

[kimzey59]

Lots of nuggets in here post-draft.

What could the Kevin Hayes' salary dump mean for the Blues' future moves?

With the 2024 NHL Draft behind them, the Blues will focus on the start of free agency Monday and the possibility of some offseason trades.

www.nytimes.com

1- Buch is going to be re-signed. Only question is what the extension will look like.
1a- He's being penciled in as the #2 center but that's open to change.

2- Highly likely that Army uses the savings from the Hayes deal.

3- Schenn is being penciled in as the 3rd line center.

4- Bolduc, Dean and Dvorsky will all have a legit chance at making the team but there will be some competition brought in.

5- Army's looking hard at the trade market, and it sounds like he's looking to capitalize on a team that goes big in UFA spending.

 

[AyeBah]

I mean we have 16m in space for next year have to think something big will happen. Spitballing Brady T or Marner would be nice but I don't think I'm that optimistic. Necas could also be in the mix for one of our open center roles. We have a lot of cap room and not many roster spots to really fill besides one forward and maybe 1 depth D spot so this will be interesting to monitor

 

[bleedblue1223]

I do think Buchnevich gets extended, really hope it's 5 years or less. Really hope he and Steen learned the issues with the 7-8 year deals. Lets not give Steen another Krug/Faulk/Schenn situation right off the bat.

Maybe we make a move, maybe we don't, but I don't think it's going to be a day 1 of free agency type move, unless it's just a perfect fit. Maybe you try another cap dump move where we take on a 1-2 year deal and get a draft pick as compensation.

 

[bleedblue1223]

If it does play out that way, this is where I would agree with some that don't like this retool plan. I don't think we should complete tear the thing down adn embrace a massive tank, but I do think there's a healthy middle ground between that and what we are probably going to do. It's never good to both not make aggressive moves to improve the roster or make moves to maxmize the amount of future assets that you have. We can make some moves that make us a little bit worse now, that gain us assets through those moves, and also likely result in a better draft pick. Having these next 2 drafts around top 10 would be much better for our future than having drafts around 14-18ish. I think that's a valid concern to have as a fan.

I think you can trade Buchnevich and gain a bunch of assets, and sign a stop gap forward, so we still have a decent enough team where young players can develop and not be thrown into the fire. Keep guys like Parayko and Binnington, so that Hofer isn't alone behind a terrible defense. That still gives you an opportunity to quickly get back into playoffs once some of the prospects develop or a key NHL player move, but also gives the next core higher quality prospects.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Has Doug 'lost it'?

 

[Celtic Note]

Lots of nuggets in here post-draft.

What could the Kevin Hayes' salary dump mean for the Blues' future moves?

With the 2024 NHL Draft behind them, the Blues will focus on the start of free agency Monday and the possibility of some offseason trades.

www.nytimes.com

1- Buch is going to be re-signed. Only question is what the extension will look like.
1a- He's being penciled in as the #2 center but that's open to change.

2- Highly likely that Army uses the savings from the Hayes deal.

3- Schenn is being penciled in as the 3rd line center.

4- Bolduc, Dean and Dvorsky will all have a legit chance at making the team but there will be some competition brought in.

5- Army's looking hard at the trade market, and it sounds like he's looking to capitalize on a team that goes big in UFA spending.

I tried reading this, but it’s a paywall. Is this JR speculating or are these Army quotes you bulleted?

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

Has Doug 'lost it'?

No. We have 7 1st rounders from the past 4 drafts in our system, and anywhere from 2 to 4 of them will get games this coming season. Neighbours also just graduated, and we have a young 1C in Thomas for 7 more years.

I don’t get why people are in panic mode.

 

[Majorityof1]

I don’t get why people are in panic mode.

Show me a normally reasonable person in panic mode?

 

[Linkens Mastery]

I'm just wondering how the next week plays out. I'm expecting 2 major extensions over the next week for players on the team.

 

[542365]

I'm just wondering how the next week plays out. I'm expecting 2 major extensions over the next week for players on the team.

Buch and who else? Neighbours? Hofer?

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Buch and who else? Neighbours? Hofer?

Neighbours

 

[Blueston]

Neighbours

I don't expect Neighbours to be done this week. There is no hurry and I think Army wants to see how other things play out. I think Neighbours gets done closer to camp. But it does sound like Buchy could get done soon.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

No. We have 7 1st rounders from the past 4 drafts in our system, and anywhere from 2 to 4 of them will get games this coming season. Neighbours also just graduated, and we have a young 1C in Thomas for 7 more years.

I don’t get why people are in panic mode.

No panic from me. Just an honest question.

 

[kimzey59]

I tried reading this, but it’s a paywall. Is this JR speculating or are these Army quotes you bulleted?

Actual reporting with quotes from Army.

At the risk of getting my wrist slapped:

LAS VEGAS — Doug Armstrong has been given a lot of credit for his honesty during the St. Louis Blues’ retool, and another example of it came Saturday.

Granted, the general manager was admitting his own mistake. A year ago, he acquired veteran center Kevin Hayes from the Philadelphia Flyers for a 2024 sixth-round draft pick, and Saturday, he traded Hayes and a 2025 second-round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for future considerations.

In fact, when the deal was announced on the morning of Day 2 of the NHL Draft, the Flyers had yet to even make the pick the Blues sent them for Hayes.

“When you put it down on paper, it wasn’t a shining moment for myself,” Armstrong said.

But if the Blues want to be shining anytime soon, it’s going to take continued accountability and moves like this.

Bringing in Hayes made some sense at the time. The club needed a center, and with a locker room that was lacking chemistry, adding an affable veteran presence was also viewed as a plus. The Flyers were retaining 50 percent of Hayes’ $7.1 million cap hit, so the Blues were only on the hook for $3.6 million.

Hayes, however, just wasn’t the player who could help. The 32-year-old chipped in with 13 goals and 29 points and had the team’s best winning percentage on faceoffs (57 percent). But showing declining speed, he was a healthy scratch for a team battling for a playoff spot at the end of the season.

So, staring at the two years left on his contract, Armstrong cut his losses.

“This is just a situation where it wasn’t working,” Armstrong said. “I made a decision a year ago that I thought it could work for three years, and as the year progressed, it didn’t look like it was working for either side.

“I just felt the way we’re looking moving forward, if we want to put younger guys in there, I didn’t see a path for him to regain his footing. When it’s not working on the ice for him and for us, it just felt like it was the proper time.”

Armstrong also acknowledged another factor in the decision: It was a salary dump.

The Blues have shed Hayes’ $3.6 million cap hit for the next two seasons. His actual salary dollars would’ve been $5.25 million each year for a total of $10.5 million, and with the Flyers retaining 50 percent of that, the club saved $5.25 million in real-dollar value.

“It gives us an opportunity, whether it’s this year or next year, to use cap space or at worst save $6 million,” Armstrong said.

According to PuckPedia, the Blues have $71.7 million committed to 18 players, leaving them approximately $16.3 million under the NHL’s $88 million next season.

They may not spend to the cap during the retool, so the Hayes trade wasn’t something that had to happen to make room for another player — again, it was more about the fit — but every bit helps when making the next move for the future.

Such as Pavel Buchnevich.

Armstrong confirmed The Athletic’s report Friday that the Blues and Buchnevich’s camp have been talking, and the GM even took it a step further.

“Yeah, we’ve had very good conversations,” he said. “We’re going to talk again in July. I can’t handicap it. It wasn’t like we were talking apples to oranges. It’s just getting a comfort level for both sides now. The hardest part is always the last little bit.”

The last little bit?

That sounds like the Blues and Buchnevich are at least thinking along the same lines. The reference to “July” is because July 1 (Monday) is the first day that players with one year remaining on their existing contracts, like Buchnevich, are eligible to sign an extension.

The challenge of ironing out an extension for Buchnevich has been the term, according to team and league sources. But judging by Armstrong’s comments Saturday, that may not be as big of an issue in his mind as it was previously.

“He’s been here three years,” Armstrong said. “He’s been a point-per-game player — one of our top three scorers — for three years, and he’s 29, going to be 30. He’s probably got at least, after (the 2024-25 season), four really strong years left. Then it’s like all these free agents — it’s the ‘out’ money. But that’s the price of doing business.”

Speaking of that price: As mentioned, free agency opens Monday.

The Blues will be monitoring the market but don’t plan to be major players.

“I never say never on anything, but you’re realistic, too,” Armstrong said. “We’re going to be understanding of where we’re at. I liked the way (Zack) Bolduc played last year. I liked Dean, and I do want to give them opportunities. We’ll see how we can augment that group.

“I think you have to consider everything, but we have acquired these assets and we have younger players coming. We have to look at the whole landscape on how to improve our team.”

Having the additional cap space, Armstrong said, can also help the Blues in ways he can’t anticipate.

“You never know what other teams are going to do,” he said. “You saw a team like Tampa Bay make changes (trading Mikhail Sergachev and Tanner Jeannot) that I don’t think a lot of people saw coming. There might be other people that want to move money, and we have assets. So we have the ability now to talk to teams about things that maybe we didn’t before, and we also have the ability to see how everybody reacts on July 1.”

Despite Hayes’ departure, the Blues aren’t necessarily looking for a third-line center, but they could be eventually.

Prospect Dalibor Dvorsky, a center, was the team’s first-round pick (No. 10) in the 2023 NHL Draft and will be in training camp with a chance to make the team. In addition, Armstrong said that Buchnevich could be penciled in as the second-line center and Brayden Schenn as the third-line center. Newcomer Alexandre Texier, who was acquired in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday, was a center earlier in his career but is expected to play on the wing.

If the Blues decide to find a center from outside the organization, Armstrong said it shouldn’t be a problem.

“We have an opportunity to see what’s available over the next couple of months via trade,” he said. “We have some opportunity to do some things, and we’ll explore it.”

But for now, fans will have to wait. That goes for the defense, too. Will Torey Krug be moved? Justin Faulk?

“They’re all under contract,” Armstrong said. “We’re just going to wait and see how it goes in July and August. That’s all I can really say.”

As for the draft, Armstrong liked his haul. The Blues took defenseman Adam Jiricek with the No. 16 pick and made nine selections in all. They picked Jiricek, defenseman Colin Ralph (No. 48), defenseman Lukas Fischer (No. 56), left winger Ondrej Kos (No. 81), center Adam Jecho (No. 95), center Tomas Mrsic (No. 113), defenseman William McIsaac (No. 145), center Antoine Dorion (No. 209) and center Matvei Korotky (No. 211).

“I do believe that we took the best player available for us at that time — they just happened to be defense,” Armstrong said. “It was a defense-heavy draft, and we were able to find players that our guys liked. They’re bigger bodies. It’s amazing how tall they are and how lean they are. So there’s a lot of muscle mass needed for these young men, but we’re excited to have that style of player.

“We have some players here, and now it’s just giving them some time to grow with us.”

 

[BleedBlue14]

The Hayes thing still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me unless there is an internal budget. The only other thing would possibly be not wanting any of the young guys to be stuck playing with him and wanting to try and do right by the player.

Trading a 2nd to do so right in the middle of a retool seems outlandishly dumb though.

I guess our prospect pool is pretty deep now and the thought was a player in the 40s likely isn’t going change our outlook. I still can’t imagine there wasn’t a much better use for that 2nd than dumping a center a position where we’re already set to have to have 2 wingers play there or a rookie.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

No panic from me. Just an honest question.

That’s fair. The panic part was basically a blanket statement that wasn’t totally directed at you or anything. I just see people bugging out about some of the moves this weekend.

The main point of my post was just saying that he hasn’t lost it, and that we’ve got a bunch of talented young players coming in waves over the next couple years.

 

[Reality Czech]

The Hayes thing still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me unless there is an internal budget. The only other thing would possibly be not wanting any of the young guys to be stuck playing with him and wanting to try and do right by the player.

Trading a 2nd to do so right in the middle of a retool seems outlandishly dumb though.

I guess our prospect pool is pretty deep now and the thought was a player in the 40s likely isn’t going change our outlook. I still can’t imagine there wasn’t a much better use for that 2nd than dumping a center a position where we’re already set to have to have 2 wingers play there or a rookie.

During Army's interview with Strick he did mention something to the fact that it is still a business and they didn't wanna keep Hayes on the books if he didn't really fit here. Sounds like he did it as a favor to Hayes + the fact that they got out of some money that wasn't really benefiting the team. Army justified it by saying we've had a lot of high picks in recent years and could afford to pay that price to get out of Hayes contract.

Yeah they never should have acquired him in the first place. Reading comments from Pittsburgh fans in the trade thread, they are saying the exact same things we said last summer. Guess they'll find out soon enough.

 

[Celtic Note]

Actual reporting with quotes from Army.

At the risk of getting my wrist slapped:

Thanks. I read it if you need to delete

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

If Buch gets extended, its probably a 7 year deal.

Actual reporting with quotes from Army.

At the risk of getting my wrist slapped:

Who wrote that article? That was the most informative best written piece on the Blues with quotes from Armstrong I think I may have ever read.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

If Buch gets extended, its probably a 7 year deal.

Who wrote that article? That was the most informative best written piece on the Blues with quotes from Armstrong I think I may have ever read.

It was JR

 

[Drubilly]

It was JR

 

[Blanick]

I love Buch but still think the smart play is to move him. Especially this offseason there are maybe a handful of forwards at the top of this UFA class. Tampa traded for Guentzels rights so he probably signs there, Reinhart is rumored to be going back to Florida. That leaves Stamkos and Marchessault left at the top. Some team is not going to get the high end forward they are after and are going to turn to the trade market. Blues could catch them why they are desperate after missing out.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I guess I'm somewhat curious if Army is playing chess in trade negotiations when it comes to Buchnevich, and is waiting for teams to be left scrambling after missing out on free agents. Or, is he willing to be pretty aggressive with short-term, but high-quality vets.

 

[Mike Liut]

I guess I'm somewhat curious if Army is playing chess in trade negotiations when it comes to Buchnevich, and is waiting for teams to be left scrambling after missing out on free agents. Or, is he willing to be pretty aggressive with short-term, but high-quality vets.

I still think he gets moved for a more ready prospect and possible a 2025 pick. We just can’t be signing a 30 yr old player to a 7-8 yr contract.