Blues Off-season and 2025-26 Season

[cardsfantx]

I didn't even see that!

I saw it on the tsn.com NHL trade tracker. I hadn't seen it previously, either.

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/tradecentre/trade-tracker/

2nd rounder with good numbers in the KHL...looks like he's been hurt with an upper body injury

wonder if he's planning on coming over sometime soon? another good forward prospect to add potentially!

[sighyoung]

I didn't even see that!

I saw it on the tsn.com NHL trade tracker. I hadn't seen it previously, either.

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/tradecentre/trade-tracker/

2nd rounder with good numbers in the KHL...looks like he's been hurt with an upper body injury

wonder if he's planning on coming over sometime soon? another good forward prospect to add potentially!

Sure looks like he could come over to North America soon.

[JCShutout]

Ha, I used up my battery all morning looking for trade info then had nothing left to read about the last min trades.

1st and 3rds, lottery tickets and warm bodies back for both Schenner and Faulk? No retention? (I’m still catching up, is that accurate?)

I call that a win.

[Popeye_Card]

Blues sure picked a good season to be crappy. With a bunch of teams on the fringe of the playoffs seemingly overpaying for pieces to solidify their spots. Neither of Detroit or NYI have much of a shot to make it past the first round, but I’ll take all those picks and prospects to watch them have a marginally better chance!

[JCShutout]

Comparing Schenn and Faulk trades to themselves just for fun…

Sept 2019: Blues acquire 27 year old Justin Faulk and a 5th round pick for Joel Edmundson, Dominik Bokk and a 7th round pick.
https://www.nhl.com/blues/news/blues-ac ... -309425306

Mar 2026: Blues trade 33 year old Justin Faulk for a 1st round pick, a 3rd round pick Dimitri Buckelnikov, and Justin Holl.
https://www.nhl.com/blues/news/faulk-tr ... -2-players

Depending on who the Blues draft with the 1st, one could argue they (Blues) got a roughly equal return on a 33 year old Faulk than Carolina did on a 27 year old Faulk. Bokk was a highly touted (iirc) former first round prospect at the time, and I love Edmundson who was a former 2nd rounder who has had a nice career that fits well with a Dman drafted there.

The 1st rounder the Blues got this year will likely be right around where they picked Bokk at 25. (Maybe lower) Buckelnikov has a solid chance of being as good in value as Edmundson, though is boom or bust, and obviously a 3rd rounder is worth more than a 5th rounder. Holl is a cap dump and warm body whose contract expires at season’s end.
————
June 2017: Blues acquire 25 year old Brayden Schenn for Jori Lehtera, a 1st round pick (#27) and a conditional 2018 1st round pick (14th)
https://www.nhl.com/news/flyers-deal-br ... -290097928


Mar 2026: Blues trade 34 year old Brayden Schenn for a 1st round pick, 3rd round pick, Marcus Gidlof and Jonathan Drouin.
https://www.nhl.com/blues/news/blues-tr ... -islanders

The 2018 pick was 14, which is really good. The Blues paid more to acquire Schenn than to sell him, but its far closer than it should be. Lehtera was an absolute mess at that point with a horrible contract ($700k more than Drouin and one more year than Drouin!) Not to mention the difference in the % of cap - $75m cap in 2017 to $88m now and a big jump next year.

So the Blues cap dump at the time was a way bigger issue than Drouin now. Two first equal each other. So the difference is a 3rd round pick and a former 5th round goalie prospect with NHL upside vs another 1st.

You could squint and call it even ish value, except of course Schenn at 34 is a shadow of his 25 year old self.
————

The Blues did really well!

Also DA might be a wizard.

[st.lewis11]

I'm very pleased with the deadline results, great job by Armstrong. Also glad we kept Thomas and Parayko. I feel our window is much closer than what many of the naysayers think.

[Popeye_Card]

I’d be more optimistic if I saw the top tier defenseman in our system that I believe we need to make the contender jump. As it stands even with some roster tweaks I think we are a fringe playoff team in the West for a couple more years. There are some stacked rosters at the top.

[JCShutout]

I could see them trying again on Kyrou in the offseason for a dman. (Nemec?) right now it’s all hope that jiricik meets his top line potential and mailloux continues to improve to become a solid top4.

I’d say so far both players appear to be on track, but I’d feel a lot better with another lotto pick on the right and another guy slated to be a solid top4 on the left side. (I don’t know what to make of our plethora of ld prospects. I assume atleast 1-2 should hit enough to be a solid bottom pairing dman.

[GeddyWrox]

Who's your next C?

Thomas is the obvious choice - maybe too obvious. I'm seeing chatter in places pining for Neighbours. I think I like this idea, honestly. It might piss Thomas off like it did Tarasenko, but I just think Neighbours kind of embodies what it means to be a Blue.

[Popeye_Card]

I would probably vote for Thomas. My reservation would be that he’s injured and out of the lineup a lot.