One team who has several players that are likely to be moved is the St. Louis Blues. The 3 players in St. Louis who have drawn the most attention are captain Ryan O'Reilly, winger Vladimir Tarasenko and winger Ivan Barbashev. When it comes to the latter, Daily Faceoff's Frank Seravalli had reported that Barbashev had already been informed by the team that he won't be back next season and that he should expect a trade sooner than later.
While the report seemed to have some legitimacy to it, Barbashev's agent quickly shut that rumour down, openly declaring that Seravalli's reporting is "inaccurate".
Barbashev is one of the names who has been linked to the Leafs. He definitely checks a lot of boxes for the Leafs as a scoring depth winger with some sandpaper to his game. However, there is no guarantee, even if he is moved, that Barbashev would have landed in Toronto anyway.
One thing to note, Milstein didn't outright deny that Barbashev could be dealt - he just indicated that he hadn't been informed that a move was coming, so we could still see the feisty winger dealt at some point over the next 4 weeks.
POLL | ||
4 FEVRIER | 307 ANSWERS Popular NHL Insider called out publicly by player agent for fake report on his client's availability Should the Leafs put together a package for Ivan Barbashev? | ||
Yes | 67 | 21.8 % |
No | 145 | 47.2 % |
Maybe, but only as a secondary piece | 95 | 30.9 % |
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