
For the first time in a while, at least publicly, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong sounded at peace with his plan for the team. He still stumbled over whether to call it a retool or a rebuild, but he said Friday, “I know what we’re doing.”
He also admitted that what the team needs to do next happens over a couple of years, not one summer. He made a reference to waiting on prospects such as Jimmy Snuggerud, Zachary Bolduc and Zach Dean. He said there would be a lot of experimenting.
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“It’s hard to say when the next wave is going to start, but the building of the next wave has to start today,” Armstrong said.
Friday was the NHL trade deadline, and beginning with the morning’s trade for Detroit’s Jakub Vrana, there is a lot to unpack about what’s happened over the past couple of weeks and what will happen in the next couple of years.
Vrana, 27, was the No. 13 pick in the 2014 draft for Washington and won the Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018. He’s a skilled player with a good shot and has netted 98 goals and 189 points in 326 NHL games. But after being traded to Detroit in 2021, he’s played in just 42 games over the past three seasons, missing 60 games two seasons ago after shoulder surgery and two months this season while in the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program.
“It was a good add for us,” Armstrong said. “He got traded to Detroit and had some off-ice issues that he’s not running from and we’re not running from. He’s looking forward to a fresh start to his career, and we’re looking forward to giving him that.”
Headline (updated): Blues get Jakub Vrana from Red Wings – why deal makes sense for both sides. #stlblues https://t.co/ufx4tJfDCz
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 3, 2023
Armstrong said the Blues did their due diligence on Vrana and saw no reason not to give him another opportunity. The club sent a seventh-round pick in 2025 and 27-year-old forward Dylan McLaughlin to the Wings in the exchange.
“We did our research and you understand the risks, but there’s probably a lot of players that have those risks we don’t even know have them,” Armstrong said. “I don’t want to get too much into it because I don’t know the exact things, but I’m a big believer in second chances.
“We don’t want to make the same (mistakes) twice, but we’re here to help these guys get along.”
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In fact, about a week after picking another skilled reclamation project off waivers from Pittsburgh, Kasperi Kapanen, Armstrong acknowledged that it’s a different time for the franchise in this regard.
“Where we’re at as an organization, these are the types of things we might not have done in the past that we do now,” he said.
It’s all part of going through this retool — wanting to have a chance to stay competitive but also not wanting to make long-term commitments with massive financial implications.
Both Vrana and Kapanen have just one more year left on their contracts, which will give the Blues at least 12 months to evaluate their fit. And with the Red Wings retaining 50 percent of Vrana’s $5.25 million cap hit, the Blues will be on the hook for just $2.625 million next season, and just $3.2 million for Kapanen.
“I don’t feel comfortable that this is the summer to get out in the free-agent market,” Armstrong said. “Where we are with the growth of our team, if we don’t have to, I don’t want to be giving out three- and four-year deals to players this summer. I’d like to have more players on one-year contracts, let them prove their value to the team and then we and they can make decisions.”
You’ve probably noticed by now, but if not, yes, this was another trade between BFFs Armstrong and Detroit GM Steve Yzerman. They have consummated many other deals, including ones involving Robby Fabbri, Jake Walman, Oskar Sundqvist and Ville Husso.
Since Steve Yzerman returned to the Red Wings, there's no GM he has traded with more than St. Louis' Doug Armstrong — bringing Robby Fabbri, Jake Walman, Oskar Sundqvist and Ville Husso to Detroit.
So, why do the two seem to link up so often? Story:https://t.co/WkGDV5aZK9
— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) February 22, 2023
“Yeah we’ve done a few over the last little while,” Armstrong said, smiling. “I laughed last night. I said (to Yzerman), ‘For 36 months, you were in one (bad) spot and we had excess players, and now you’re in a (good) spot. Maybe in three years, neither of us will be in that spot and we’ll both be happy.”
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For the Blues, the trade deadline wasn’t as busy as perhaps many expected it to be.
Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola were dealt to the Rangers on Feb. 9, Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari to the Leafs on Feb. 17 and Ivan Barbashev to Vegas on Feb. 26.
It seemed smart to get those deals done well ahead of Friday’s deadline, especially Tarasenko and O’Reilly, because the dance partners might have disappeared if Armstrong had waited.
For example, it’s fair to wonder: If Armstrong hadn’t made the trade with New York and Chicago’s Patrick Kane had made up his mind on wanting a trade to the Rangers sooner, would the Blues have gotten a first-rounder for Tarasenko?
“It’s a fine line, but pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered,” Armstrong said. “We didn’t want to wait too long and end up with nothing. You never know what everyone else is doing, so I am a real believer that if you’re happy, just do what you’ve got to do.”
The other area where Armstrong appeared to make a strategic decision that paid off was putting other players, such as Mikkola and Acciari, in the trades to make them more desirable and secure a solid return.
If the Blues had made a separate deal to move Mikkola, he may have fetched a third- or fourth-round pick, but by bundling him with Tarasenko, the Rangers sent the Blues a first-rounder in 2023 and a conditional fourth in 2024 that could become a third. Acciari may have garnered a second- or third-rounder on his own, but by including him with O’Reilly, the Maple Leafs gave up a first and third in 2023 and a second in 2024.
“I actually talked to one team about trading four guys,” Armstrong said. “There was a vision why teams would want to package some of these guys. It doesn’t work like that every year, but one of the only positives this year is we picked a good year to have a bad year, as far as the number of quality free agents we were going to have.”
#stlblues trade tote board
Traded: Tarasenko, Mikkola, O'Reilly, Acciari, Barbashev
Acquired:
– 1st in 2023
– 1st in 2023 (conditional)
– 2nd in 2024
– 3rd in 2023
– 4th in 2024 (conditional)
– Players: Zach Dean, Sammy Blais, Hunter Skinner, Mikhail Abramov and Adam Gaudette.
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) February 26, 2023
The Blues had only one other UFA before the flurry of deals, Thomas Greiss. They picked up a UFA-to-be, Sammy Blais, in the deal with the Rangers and re-signed him to a one-year deal worth $1 million. That means Blais, Vrana and Kapanen will all be on the final years of their contracts next season, and as Armstrong said, “There’s probably nothing more dangerous than a motivated player on a one-year deal.”
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Armstrong was envisioning his top-nine forwards for 2023-24 on Friday and said there were currently seven: Vrana, Kapanen, Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich, Brayden Schenn, Robert Thomas and Brandon Saad. There are eight if you count Jake Neighbours.
The GM’s desire would be to bring in a center, but after watching Buchnevich play some shifts in the middle this season, and seeing Nikita Alexandrov make strides as well, perhaps adding a winger will be the direction the club goes.
“I think we’re going to be looking ideally at a centerman, but if we have to get creative, we can,” Armstrong said.
According to CapFriendly, the Blues are currently $5.8 million under the league’s projected $83.5 million salary cap for 2023-24. Armstrong said specifically that the club’s projection is that it has $4.2 million remaining for one spot. He’s gotten no word yet from ownership that the budget will be significantly less than it has been in the past.
“I just think you can’t go from a cap team to $10-11 million under the cap in one year unless you just basically give up, and we’re not going to give up,” Armstrong said. “We’ve created a situation where we’ve given out long-term contracts, knowing that this day was going to come, but it was worth the success for the last couple of years.”
The Blues did explore other options heading into the trade deadline, such as trading for Arizona’s Jakob Chychrun. Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong wound up trading Chychrun to Ottawa and acknowledged that he chose the Senators’ offer over a package that included two later first-round picks.
The Blues, oh by the way, have two late first-round picks. They were not going to give up their own first-round pick, which could be in the top 10.
“That wasn’t going anywhere,” Armstrong said. “That pick, it’s the first time in my manager career I’ve been in his situation to pick that high.”
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There were also reports that the Blues engaged in trade talks involving Colton Parayko.
In the wake of the Chychrun trade …
What I’m hearing about Colton Parayko’s Blues future and potential trade options https://t.co/j6nQ2LKM1P #stlblues
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 1, 2023
Asked specifically about Parayko’s availability, Armstrong replied: “I don’t want to get into any specific player. I know who I talk to and what we talk about. I know a year ago, I was part of the Olympic team for Team Canada. I worked with some great hockey minds, and they all had (Parayko) on the team. So, I think when you’re very close to it, you can get overly optimistic or overly negative. That’s why, as a manager, I love to get out and scout because when you think things are going really bad. Then you go watch some other teams and you’re going, ‘Well, they’re not quite that bad.’
“I think we have good players that are well-respected around the league, maybe not sometimes locally because of the emotion of a bad season. You talk to a lot of different teams about a lot of options. I wouldn’t say there’s one thing we didn’t consider, regarding anyone. When you’re looking up at the standings and you can’t see the top because there’s so many between you and them, you have to consider every option.”
So there will be no changes on the defense for now, and if that’s still the case when the 2023-24 season begins, Armstrong says he’s not as pessimistic about the group as most.
“The D have been a topic of conversation for our fan base and inside,” he said. “I looked at how confident they were as a group of four last year, and this year it hasn’t been to that same level, but it’s not like they’re 37 or 38 years old. They’re in their late 20s to early 30s, so I think we have to help them with our structure to give them a better opportunity. (But) ultimately they have to get back to the level they know they can play at. I just don’t think they’ve had the years they can have. I don’t know why all four at different times haven’t had that year, but collectively our defensive game hasn’t been good.”
At the end of the day, though, the Blues feel like they’re in a better position than a couple of months ago.
“I’m not minimizing how bad this is,” Armstrong said. “I don’t want our fans to think that we’re happy that we had to go through this. But when it was cast, I’m proud of the guys I work with, our pro scouts and our management staff, on coming up with creative ideas that we could make the best out of a bad situation.”
(Photo of Colton Parayko: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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