Blues 2024 Off-Season Trade Proposals Thread

[Xerloris]

Because he’s a bottom pair defenseman who’d get eaten alive playing the minutes/situations that the Blues play Parayko in.

people thought the same of Leddy.

 

[Blueston]

people thought the same of Leddy.

Only if they weren’t paying close attention. Leddy has averaged at least 21 minutes a night every season since he was 24. Zadorov has never averaged even 20.

 

[Xerloris]

Only if they weren’t paying close attention. Leddy has averaged at least 21 minutes a night every season since he was 24. Zadorov has never averaged even 20.

most around here don't. they just use anything as ammunition to scream fire Armstrong!

 

[The Note]

people thought the same of Leddy.

Leddy’s performed admirably in tough circumstances. However, the fact he’s been thrust into that role at all speaks to the larger mess that is the defense currently. Also, Leddy at his peak was (and still is) a better defenseman than Zadorov has ever proven to be.

A large part of the Blues problem is being mired with the mishmash of parts on the backend. Zadorov doesn’t improve on any of that, he’s just a different flavor of defenseman than what they currently have. Add in the fact he’s reportedly looking for 6x6 and that’s going to be an ugly contract from the word go.

 

[Brian39]

Vancouver is going to have 41+ million in cap space this offseason, I really cant see Zadorov not resigning with the Nucks.

Capfriendly has transitioned seasons and is now listing 2024/25 as the 'current' season. They have $41M in cap space for the summer of 2025, and have about $24M for this summer. A bit more if we assume that Poolman's career is over and they can stash him on LTIR. A good chunk of cap space, but they have a lot of work to do.

Their #2, #3, #4, and #6 D men all need to be extended or replaced. Zadorov, Myers, and Cole are all UFAs while Hronek (the #2 all year) is an RFA with arbitration rights. Elias Lindholm either needs to be extended or replaced. Joshua and Blueger will either get noticeable raises or need to be replaced.

I can definitely see them extending him, but their cap space isn't unlimited and I certainly wouldn't consider him the top priority.

The Team that you gotta keep an eye on is Carolina. That team is going to lose from really solid players in UFA.

Agreed about them being the team to watch. But I'll go much further. I want to be in active trade discussions with them. They might let guys walk as UFAs. However, I think that they are just as likely (or perhaps even more likely) to make a couple cap clearing moves of non-core pieces to retain UFAs.

Orlov hasn't been worth the AAV, only has 1 year left, and has no trade protection. If they want to add a #1 goalie, then Andersen is dead money. It sounds like they want to move on from Necas rather than extending him and his production gives him a worrisome arbitration case for team with a cap crunch. They have a couple D prospects that I'd give up a haul for.

I still think that Buch is a perfect fit for their system and we could retain to give them a hell of a player with minimal cap consequence. I think Binner would be a great answer as a potential #1 there. We have a couple other vets that might make sense for them to add as middle-lineup players if we retain (Leddy, Hayes, and Saad could all be cheap 2 year commitments to support a core).

They have a lot of potential directions they (and us) could go and I think there are potential deals to be made between our two teams in each scenario each team choses to take.

I could see them going all-in rather than retooling. We could offer them a #1 goalie in Binnington, a fantastic 2 way scoring winger in Buch (with 50% retention), take Orlov and take Freddie. That type of deal would clear $2.25M in cap space for Carolina to extend guys while simultaneuously offering a large upgrade in net and on the wing. That should be worth an absolute haul to them if they want to go all-in now and extend their UFAs for a short-term window.

There are a lot of less 'blockbuster' type deals available, but obviously there are less massive deals to be made where we are simply taking bad money and/or offering one asset to them.

It will be very interesting to see if Skeji hits UFA, and if he does, that should absolutely be a guy the Blues jump in on.

I'd be open to heaving an overpriced contract at Skeji if he was 27. That would fit our timeline nicely.

I'd also be open to heaving an overpriced contract at a 30 year old version of him if he had been hitting UFA 2-3 years ago. Adding him to the blueline to improve it when we were still attempting to keep a window open would have been nice.

And I'd also be open to heaving an overpriced contract at a 30 year old version of him if he were hitting UFA 1-2 seasons from now. Adding a 30 year old D man of his caliber to the roster as more of our prospects are ready to contribute would be nice.

But given our roster as it sits today, I'm not comfortable overpaying for him in UFA this summer. Without sizeable improvement to the forward group, fixing the blueline doesn't make us contenders right away. A UFA contract to him is guaranteed to include multiple bad years at the end. If you're not getting maximum value out of the first few years, it just isn't worth it.

The only way I'd be interested in Skjei as a UFA this summer would be if we had a very active draft that involved 1-2 big trades.

 

[PocketNines]

Armstrong's MO is to be interested in signing Zadorov and I very definitely do not mean that as a compliment to his ability to assess hockey

 

[TurgPavs]

Capfriendly has transitioned seasons and is now listing 2024/25 as the 'current' season. They have $41M in cap space for the summer of 2025, and have about $24M for this summer. A bit more if we assume that Poolman's career is over and they can stash him on LTIR. A good chunk of cap space, but they have a lot of work to do.

Their #2, #3, #4, and #6 D men all need to be extended or replaced. Zadorov, Myers, and Cole are all UFAs while Hronek (the #2 all year) is an RFA with arbitration rights. Elias Lindholm either needs to be extended or replaced. Joshua and Blueger will either get noticeable raises or need to be replaced.

I can definitely see them extending him, but their cap space isn't unlimited and I certainly wouldn't consider him the top priority.



Agreed about them being the team to watch. But I'll go much further. I want to be in active trade discussions with them. They might let guys walk as UFAs. However, I think that they are just as likely (or perhaps even more likely) to make a couple cap clearing moves of non-core pieces to retain UFAs.

Orlov hasn't been worth the AAV, only has 1 year left, and has no trade protection. If they want to add a #1 goalie, then Andersen is dead money. It sounds like they want to move on from Necas rather than extending him and his production gives him a worrisome arbitration case for team with a cap crunch. They have a couple D prospects that I'd give up a haul for.

I still think that Buch is a perfect fit for their system and we could retain to give them a hell of a player with minimal cap consequence. I think Binner would be a great answer as a potential #1 there. We have a couple other vets that might make sense for them to add as middle-lineup players if we retain (Leddy, Hayes, and Saad could all be cheap 2 year commitments to support a core).

They have a lot of potential directions they (and us) could go and I think there are potential deals to be made between our two teams in each scenario each team choses to take.

I could see them going all-in rather than retooling. We could offer them a #1 goalie in Binnington, a fantastic 2 way scoring winger in Buch (with 50% retention), take Orlov and take Freddie. That type of deal would clear $2.25M in cap space for Carolina to extend guys while simultaneuously offering a large upgrade in net and on the wing. That should be worth an absolute haul to them if they want to go all-in now and extend their UFAs for a short-term window.

There are a lot of less 'blockbuster' type deals available, but obviously there are less massive deals to be made where we are simply taking bad money and/or offering one asset to them.


I'd be open to heaving an overpriced contract at Skeji if he was 27. That would fit our timeline nicely.

I'd also be open to heaving an overpriced contract at a 30 year old version of him if he had been hitting UFA 2-3 years ago. Adding him to the blueline to improve it when we were still attempting to keep a window open would have been nice.

And I'd also be open to heaving an overpriced contract at a 30 year old version of him if he were hitting UFA 1-2 seasons from now. Adding a 30 year old D man of his caliber to the roster as more of our prospects are ready to contribute would be nice.

But given our roster as it sits today, I'm not comfortable overpaying for him in UFA this summer. Without sizeable improvement to the forward group, fixing the blueline doesn't make us contenders right away. A UFA contract to him is guaranteed to include multiple bad years at the end. If you're not getting maximum value out of the first few years, it just isn't worth it.

The only way I'd be interested in Skjei as a UFA this summer would be if we had a very active draft that involved 1-2 big trades.

I am pretty much on the same page.
On a different forum, there is a poster, whose brother does analytics for the Blues, and mentioned that there was a lot of request for analytics/metrics, for Nikishan,, Morrow, Necas, Unger Sorum, and Trikozov, a couple of weeks before the TDL. He was told the Blues and Carolina have discussed a trade that would be a Organizational altering deal fore the Blues.

He thinks the discussion centered around both Buch and Binny heading to Carolina, at the TDL, but believes this is a deal we may see this off season as well.

 

[Brian39]

I am pretty much on the same page.
On a different forum, there is a poster, whose brother does analytics for the Blues, and mentioned that there was a lot of request for analytics/metrics, for Nikishan,, Morrow, Necas, Unger Sorum, and Trikozov, a couple of weeks before the TDL. He was told the Blues and Carolina have discussed a trade that would be a Organizational altering deal fore the Blues.

He thinks the discussion centered around both Buch and Binny heading to Carolina, at the TDL, but believes this is a deal we may see this off season as well.

I take "I know a guy in the organization who says this" posts on the internet with the largest grain of salt possible and I very much doubt that our notoriously tight-lipped front office would be telling analytics guys about trade discussions. I'd wager that any such 'insider info' would be full blown speculation based on what kind of requests are being made of the analytics department.

All that said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we were heavily scouting Carolina's organization and made it pretty far down the road on a big trade discussion leading up to the deadline.

I'm not at all eager to move on from Binner. I don't hate the 'rebuild without becoming a truly terrible team' model and having quality goaltending that can bail a developing team out from mistakes is a good thing in my eyes even if it harms draft position. I also think that Hofer's development stands to benefit from another season with him. But there is certainly a price where moving him returns too much value to ignore and Carolina is a team that has the type of assets that can reach that price.

I'm really curious about Necas and what our internal analytics say about him. He's clearly not happy with his usage in Carolina, the recently-extended coach clearly doesn't view him as a good fit for the system, and I've seen a lot of speculation that he feels he should be a center in the NHL.

From a roster standpoint, we are certainly well positioned to give him a year-long audition as a top 6 center in a completely different system. I have pretty major doubts that he can ever be good enough at the dot and defensively to play that role full-time, but next year would be the time to run that experiment. We could give him a true 1 year 'prove it' deal if he is truly confident that he will explode as a center or we could give him a 4 year deal like Buch's that buys a couple UFA years but still lets him see UFA when he's got some good years left.

Taking the chance on Schenn as a center instead of a winger worked out great for our organization. He had more center experience, but he was also awful on the dot and he was no defensive all star. He is/was more physical than Necas will ever be, but Necas certainly has the wheels to be more effective coming through the neutral zone if you can get him to buy in to defensive effort in exchange for the chance at center. I see some organizational precedent to give an external guy the chance to prove himself at center and Thomas is good enough defensively to let us deploy Necas favorably.

I would absolutely love to know if our office believes that he can be an offensively-focused top 6 center in the NHL.

 

[Mike Liut]

Because he’s a bottom pair defenseman who’d get eaten alive playing the minutes/situations that the Blues play Parayko in.

I think he and Parayko would be a great shut down duo.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Paying Zadorov 6 mil a year long term would not be a great move at the current timeframe of our Franchise. And doesnt sound like that is where we are going towards either

 

[Blueston]

Paying Zadorov 6 mil a year long term would not be a great move at the current timeframe of our Franchise. And doesnt sound like that is where we are going towards either

it would be terrible move for any franchise to pay zadorov that much, but would be even worse for us with where we are at.

 

[WeWentBlues]

I take "I know a guy in the organization who says this" posts on the internet with the largest grain of salt possible and I very much doubt that our notoriously tight-lipped front office would be telling analytics guys about trade discussions. I'd wager that any such 'insider info' would be full blown speculation based on what kind of requests are being made of the analytics department.

All that said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we were heavily scouting Carolina's organization and made it pretty far down the road on a big trade discussion leading up to the deadline.

I'm not at all eager to move on from Binner. I don't hate the 'rebuild without becoming a truly terrible team' model and having quality goaltending that can bail a developing team out from mistakes is a good thing in my eyes even if it harms draft position. I also think that Hofer's development stands to benefit from another season with him. But there is certainly a price where moving him returns too much value to ignore and Carolina is a team that has the type of assets that can reach that price.

I'm really curious about Necas and what our internal analytics say about him. He's clearly not happy with his usage in Carolina, the recently-extended coach clearly doesn't view him as a good fit for the system, and I've seen a lot of speculation that he feels he should be a center in the NHL.

From a roster standpoint, we are certainly well positioned to give him a year-long audition as a top 6 center in a completely different system. I have pretty major doubts that he can ever be good enough at the dot and defensively to play that role full-time, but next year would be the time to run that experiment. We could give him a true 1 year 'prove it' deal if he is truly confident that he will explode as a center or we could give him a 4 year deal like Buch's that buys a couple UFA years but still lets him see UFA when he's got some good years left.

Taking the chance on Schenn as a center instead of a winger worked out great for our organization. He had more center experience, but he was also awful on the dot and he was no defensive all star. He is/was more physical than Necas will ever be, but Necas certainly has the wheels to be more effective coming through the neutral zone if you can get him to buy in to defensive effort in exchange for the chance at center. I see some organizational precedent to give an external guy the chance to prove himself at center and Thomas is good enough defensively to let us deploy Necas favorably.

I would absolutely love to know if our office believes that he can be an offensively-focused top 6 center in the NHL.

Sign me up to the Necas and Nikishin band wagon. I'd be willing to use all 3 of our retention slots and take bad money to help them over the hump if it nets both those guys.

 

[Mike Liut]

Sign me up to the Necas and Nikishin band wagon. I'd be willing to use all 3 of our retention slots and take bad money to help them over the hump if it nets both those guys.

I’ve always loved Necas

 

[Vladys Gumption]

I think he and Parayko would be a great shut down duo.

Parayko has played his best hockey with a partner who is good in transition and who had the ability to either skate or pass the puck out of the zone. Zadorov does neither of those things well. I think he’s exactly the opposite of who we should target as a partner for Parayko.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Armstrong's MO is to be interested in signing Zadorov and I very definitely do not mean that as a compliment to his ability to assess hockey

How is that his MO?

 

[Mike Liut]

Parayko has played his best hockey with a partner who is good in transition and who had the ability to either skate or pass the puck out do the zone. Zadorov does neither of those things well. I think he’s exactly the opposite of who we should target as a partner for Parayko.

Possibly, but has he played with a big, physical shut down D before?

 

[bleedblue1223]

Possibly, but has he played with a big, physical shut down D before?

Mikkola.

 

[WeWentBlues]

I mentioned elsewhere that I think we shouild be looking out for undervalued d around league. guy who could be available that fits description is timothy liljegren. he has been whipping boy for so long in toronto it's hard to remember he just turned 25 couple weeks ago. he has decent size and skill but seemingly struggles to put it all together, but how much of that is situational? i think he is guy who will benefit from getting out of toronto. i could see him, a prospect (decent but not one of their top guys cowan or minten or knies) and their 1st in deal for buchy, as they look to build team that fits berube. or maybe we deal them back their 2nd for him straight up, i'm just speculating. and maybe he never blossoms, but maybe he gets out of crosshairs of leaf fans and becomes solid top 4 (or better) d somewhere else.

Was looking at Ottawa's roster and wondering how Chychrun or Brannstrom fit into this mold.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Not on the Zadorov train.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

Possibly, but has he played with a big, physical shut down D before?

I’m not really interested in even finding out. We know how well he can play with a puck moving partner. No reason to mess with that.

 

[Blueston]

Was looking at Ottawa's roster and wondering how Chychrun or Brannstrom fit into this mold.

brannstrom could be interesting...

 

[PocketNines]

How is that his MO?

Because he covets overpaid 4-5 defenders if they are the UFA who is on the market and they play D and he needs D. He will pursue them. He needs a #1 defenseman so the next best thing is to lock up a bad contract on a 4-6 defender if they will agree to come here. That's how he thinks. It's terrible, but he does think in this fashion. What's it going to cost him, his legacy is assured

 

[BlueDream]

brannstrom could be interesting...

I hope you mean we’d be getting him in a trade that involves Perunovich, and we’re also jettisoning Krug somewhere else too.

If that happens, then I agree it could be interesting. But I definitely don’t want all 3 of them, and even 2 sounds like too many.

 

[Blueston]

I’m not really interested in even finding out. We know how well he can play with a puck moving partner. No reason to mess with that.

guy who i think would actually be great fit next to him may just hit the market, and that is sergachev. his NTC doesn't kick in until this summer, he's signed for 7 more years, will turn 26 this summer. they just reacquired macdonough and are talking about extending hedman beyond next season. tampa has to move $ out if they are gonna keep stamkos. might sergachev actually be available? would be ironic that 2 years ago they moved mcd to sign sergachev extension to now reverse both ends of that. i don't imagine he will be cheap, but he could be guy we are all looking for.

 

[Mike Liut]

Mikkola.

I would have kept mikkola and Joshua