Équipe: 2022-23 Blues de St-Louis

Date de création initiale: 21 avr. 2022

Publié: 21 avr. 2022

Mode - plafond salarial: Basique

SO let me walk you through my thought process.

The Blues have several key players contracts coming up in 2023 offseason. If we don't start addressing it now we are in trouble. There are also still the glaring issue of who do we pair on LD with Parayko. Army doeesnt like rebuilds. He tries to always stays competitive and he's pretty damn good at it since our only pick in the top 15 since 2010 was in 2010 and was Schwartz and Vladdy.

Trades:

1) Get rid of Scandella's contract. Scandella has been a lot better this past month or so but is still overpaid. Especially since the contract doesnt expire until 2024. I think we could probably dump him for even less than this since he is a serviceable 3rd paring D man for a team that needs players and to reach the floor. I put a 4th and figured no on can complain about that. AZ gets a pick and a player under contract for 2 years.

2) The big one. Ryan O'Reilly. Our captian. Conn Smythe winner and Stanley cup champion. Consistent Selke finalist. A pro's pro. A guy who would help every single team in the league. SO why trade him? well, I wouldnt really want to. This is just an alternative option for us to find some cap space and help ourselves years in the future. I chose to dump ROR of the guys who will ned contracts in 2023 because he would bring in the biggest return. Colorado is the cup favorite right now. If they win, they will want to repeat before Mack is owed 10+ million a year and they find themselves in cap hell. They have notable free agents in Kadri, Nichushkin, Burakovsky, and Darcy Keumper. Kadri is going to want 7ish mil + with term which they will not be able to make work. and they will need a 2C. ROR would be the best 2C in the league. He only has 1 year term left but how I have set it up, the Blues retain which allows Colorado to bring back those other big pieces that make them the team they are today. Byram was a 4th OA pick and has a lot of promise. This would be the big piece from them. They would probably rather trade Girard and make Byram the 2nd LD but to get a piece like ROR, that wouldn't cut it. They have two solid LD under contract for years to come so they wouldnt be crating a positional hole with this trade. As I type this, Im thinking they probably wouldn't part ways with both him and Lehkonen. The blues have tried for Lehkonen in the past and that would certainly be the ask. I think a guy like Logan O'Connor might be more doable from the Avs point of view. I did the trades to add a little more value from the blues for the fact that the avs are giving up two guys under team control still.

3) The weird one. The Blues are a team that is cap strapped. Why would we help Calgary with a cap dump so that they can bring back their big players with expiring contracts while giving up a young middle 6 guy who is just starting to reach his potential and plus a bottom 6 guy who is young and under team control. Well, Barby is another one of those contracts that is up in 2023 and he is at the bottom of that totem pole for me. We might as well try and get something for him. While the Blues have a lot of prospects at center, none of them are very high end options. While Zary hasn't exactly excelled at the AHL level he is still very young and has a lot of the tools to become a middle/top 6 center. We havee seen with Kyrou, sometimes players tak a few years to put it all together and figur it out at the pro level. We would aslo be giving up Klim kostin who has been productive at times but hasn't quite figured it out. A switch up would be good for him and he is still so young and can be a valueable, cheap, bottom 6 player for the flames. I added their 2nd and our 4th to even out the value change and the cap dump that the Flamees would be doing in dropping monahan. Monahan has been a good playeer in the past but has been injury ridden and beeeds to be done in Calgary. He only has 1 year left on his contract so we could take on the cap and have him serve as our 3/4C then let him walk. H doesnt interfere with our ability to sign our contracts ending after this season.


Free Agency:

Perron: I think he would likely take a discount to stay in STL. Hes played for a bunch of teams but only ever signed a contract with the Blues. I put him at 3.75M for 2 years. I think he might take that. Trading ROR might make signing him much moree difficult. If this weree to happen, I would like to see us go after someone like Mason Marchment as his replacement. I think he may fall right around 4M AVV

Wedgewood: Husso has been amazing this year. I would like to have him on our team again but I believe a team is going to over him 4.5/5M with term and we just cant pay two goalies that. Wedgewood has shown flashes of being really solid and I think he could be a solid backup for us. If we want to be competitive, we will need 6M Binnington to be a good goaltender.

The rest: Bring back all the depth, young guys who have made apperences and cycle them as needed to fill a 4th line that is good. I like Dak and Torpchenko a lot. I thin walker with them is a good 4th line that can grind in the corners and control puck possesion while still having a little bit of scoring flare.

Overall

So the team lost ROR so it is definitely a worse forward core than we have this year. To be fair, its gonna be hard to match our forward core from this year. What we did do was adress left D. We would accquire Bowen Byram who could pair with Parayko now and he could grow even more into that role and be a top pairing LD. We also got a really solid two way middle 6 guy in lehkonen (if hes too much for Colorado, I would take O'connor, who would be a super affordable, effective depth guy as well but I would drop the pick exchange). We aquireed some more draft capital in the 2023 draft which is supposed to be amazing. We aquired a solid C prospect which we need cause our two top end forward prospects are Neighbors and Bolduc who both play LW. Yes, i know Bolduc is listed as C but he even said he sees himself as LW at the next level. We also changed the outlook for 2023 being 5 big players 3 UFA, 2 RFA, to 4 big guys 1 UFA, 3 RFA which would be much more manageable. So lets talk about 2023. How we have the team set up here, we have 4 big names and 28M in cap space. Lets leave 3M for the depth guys/call ups ( I think Neighbors gets called up and probably Xary too this year. I probably would wan to see bolduc get one more year in the A depending on how next year goes for him. He is super young still. ) CAp is gonna go up 1M. 26 M for Tank, Kyrou, Thomas, and Byram. I would think we could get them all signed for that. Lets give Thomas 8x8 since he may actually be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Kyrou I think we could sign for somewhere in the range of 6.5x7. Byram would be signing his first deal and basically has no control but I would like to see a 4 x4 deal --I am thinking the longest term that would keep him an RFA. Then sign Vladdy to a 7x5. AN youre all done. The team is set for years. Following that I think I would want to clear Saad at some point to creat space on th left for Neighbors and bUlduc and aquire assets to continue to replenish the system.

All this hard work and I know nobody is gonna agree with me. But hey, its capfriendly.

Let me know what you think.

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