Quoting: Robby35
What do you think parayko is worth?
Well I think value in a vaccuum isn't something you can really quantify. Instead look at where the Blues are at. We have alot of vets who are still productive but aging and expiring in 3-4 years: Faulk, Krug, Schenn, Binnington, Saad, Leddy, Hayes. We have two young players one of which is bordering stardom and the other has been while inconsistently a top 60 point getter in the NHL on a per game basis, we have a loaded forward prospect pool, we have a very good young goalie who is already at the NHL level. The vets on the back end are slotted a position or two higher than they need to be and we can't really fix it by clearing Parayko's cap and replacing Parayko. Parayko is far and away our best defender and realistically he's the only defender who is trustworthy to matchup and he still produces at an ok number not high end.
What you're asking us to do in trading Parayko is one of 3 things. 1. Add a #1 defenseman and a #2/3 defenseman with 6.5m available in cap space. 2. Completely restructure the way our defense works with pieces that are not suitable for handling defensive assignments locked up long term. 3. Wait 3-4 years and completely reconstruct our defense.
Number 1. Not possible especially via free agency. Those guys rarely ever reach UFA status. We could possibly try to trade for one, but then we're robbing peter to pay paul with our forward prospect pool.
Number 2. We could move to a full on transition style defense. A few issues with this though. Our forward group is rather slow. We have maybe 3-4 average to above average skaters on any given night in our group of 12. That's not a great recipe for success.
Number 3. This would take 3-4 years to probably fully begin. We don't have anyone in the system aside from Lindstein who is at least 2-3 years away that's very clearly on a path that would put them as a top 4 defenseman. We would have to draft and develop a #1 defenseman, Lindstein, and quite possibly another top 4 defenseman as i'm assuming prying 1 away is reasonable, prying multiple is not. That sets us on a timeline of 5-6+ years out, we have Thomas and Kyrou signed for 8 years. If we're going that route, we should trade them as well. Our GM/Pres of hockey ops has very clearly over and over again stated they aren't going to enter into a full rebuild. They're instead going to try and get back to the culture they had before.
So what sort of a return should the Blues entertain in a hypothetical Parayko trade? No less than a young top pairing potential defenseman. They need to identify and establish who that is. But of the teams that are actively (on this forum) looking to acquire Parayko, none of them have anything close to resembling that. Any combination of late 1sts and already drafted B/C Prospects have such a low liklihood of returning what we need it's more risky to go that route than it would be to just hold on to Parayko as these older contracts phase out and hope through the picks we have ourselves we can establish or fix the issue. We aren't in a great spot but we are in far from a bad spot.