Rumblings of a potential Leafs/Blues trade in the works
Last season, we saw the St. Louis Blues begin a bit of a roster purge, moving out some of their aging veterans to make way for the youth movement. Both Ryan O'Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko were traded ahead of the deadline and we also know that the Blues had attempted to trade Torey Krug to the Philadelphia Flyers as well, but the blueliner had blocked the trade, utilizing his full NTC. The team is still very much interested in continuing the purge and the Leafs may be their next trade partner.
Per The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta, Blues GM Doug Armstrong was spotted at last night's Blackhawks/Leafs game in Toronto. It's worth noting that a team's general manager typically does not attend a game in person unless he's there to scout a specific player or players himself.
Not only was Krug nearly moved this summer, but Colton Parayko's name was heavily involved in trade rumours over the summer as well. The Blues also have the likes of Justin Faulk, Marco Scandella, Nick Leddy and Robert Bortuzzo, all of whom are over 30 years of age.
We know that Brad Treliving has been looking for a defenseman since before training camp, so it would make sense that the Leafs and Blues are ideal trading partners. The question here is, who would the Leafs be targeting? Each of Parayko, Krug and Faulk contain a $6M+ cap hit, which would be extremely difficult for the Leafs to take on without some serious salary retention, as well as the Blues taking back a pricey contract in the deal. The problem there is that the Blues are also very close to the cap, with just $291K in available cap space.
It will be interesting to see how this situation develops.
| POLL | ||
OCTOBRE 17 | 247 ANSWERS Rumblings of a potential Leafs/Blues trade in the works Will the Leafs and Blues complete a trade involving a defenseman? | ||
| I think so, yes | 106 | 42.9 % |
| No, I don't think so | 95 | 38.5 % |
| Maybe, but not for a top-4 defenseman | 46 | 18.6 % |
| List of polls | ||
