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The offseason is soon upon us.

The first big question of the new season:

Who will the Blues lose in the expansion draft?

GeddyWrox wrote:The first big question of the new season:

Who will the Blues lose in the expansion draft?

Likely one of Perron, Reaves or Jaskin. We may still work out a trade with Vegas to take Lehtera if we send over a pick.

Lightning traded Drouin to Montreal. It seems like a deal we could've made.

MrCrowesGarden wrote:

GeddyWrox wrote:The first big question of the new season:

Who will the Blues lose in the expansion draft?

Likely one of Perron, Reaves or Jaskin. We may still work out a trade with Vegas to take Lehtera if we send over a pick.

Lightning traded Drouin to Montreal. It seems like a deal we could've made.

Drouin for a good D prospect, yeah, we could have done that. Sigh.

JR said the other day that Armstrong indicated it wouldn't make sense to send over a pick to ensure a player is taken. (Maybe to protect a player, sure), Could be just trying to keep things under wraps, but I fear Jori is a Blue next year.

JCShutout wrote:

MrCrowesGarden wrote:

GeddyWrox wrote:The first big question of the new season:

Who will the Blues lose in the expansion draft?

Likely one of Perron, Reaves or Jaskin. We may still work out a trade with Vegas to take Lehtera if we send over a pick.

Lightning traded Drouin to Montreal. It seems like a deal we could've made.

Drouin for a good D prospect, yeah, we could have done that. Sigh.

JR said the other day that Armstrong indicated it wouldn't make sense to send over a pick to ensure a player is taken. (Maybe to protect a player, sure), Could be just trying to keep things under wraps, but I fear Jori is a Blue next year.

We don't really have a defense prospect on the level of Sergachev and even then they added a 2nd to the deal. Obviously they would've taken (and added) to get Parayko, but there is a large gap between Sergachev and Schmaltz/Walman/Dunn. We would've likely had to add a 1st rounder+ to get Drouin and maybe that is a non-starter even because Yzerman is only interested in a guy who has a high potential to be a top pairing guy.

Personally I'm glad we didn't dump assets on a guy that slots into our strongest position (LW) leaving us with less assets to acquire a much needed top 6 center to complement Stastny. I'm a pretty big Drouin fan as well.

Edmundson and picks.

I don't really care that we're deep at LW. We need scorers. Are you telling me the Kovalchuk rumors don't intrigue you because he's a winger?

MrCrowesGarden wrote:Edmundson and picks.

I don't really care that we're deep at LW. We need scorers. Are you telling me the Kovalchuk rumors don't intrigue you because he's a winger?

Edmundson had a solid season, but Sergachev has significantly more value than he does and I doubt he would've been the roster player coming back in any Drouin deal. Of course I make that trade so long as the value of those picks isn't ridiculous (like 3 first rounders, etc).

I'm definitely intrigued by Kovalchuk, but I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to give up for him since he's 34 years old and has been out of the league for 4 years. I don't really see how he fits under the cap either way.

Then be ready for the Heartland of Third Liners.

And yeah, even if the trade was Eddy, Walman/Dunn/Schmaltz and a 1st for Drouin, I'd do it. But hey, at least we'll have gumption.

MrCrowesGarden wrote:Then be ready for the Heartland of Third Liners.

I think that is inevitable whether we make moves or not. Sobotka, Lehtera, Berglund, Perron, Jaskin, Paajarvi, and Sanford are too many third liners to part with in one offseason to not still be left with a glut of them. If we could package any of these guys for a complementary second line center I'd do it, but we'll likely will go in with the same terrible center depth we had last year.

I agree that we need scoring. I'm just not sure where it would come from. Hopefully Vegas takes one of Gunnarson, Lehtera (probably would have to add one of our 1sts), or Perron to alleviate some of our cap issues. As of right now there doesn't seem to be any way to even bridge Parayko unless someone with some salary goes or the cap goes up quite a bit (which probably will happen). It shouldn't be hard to trade some of these guys, but they don't have a ton of value either. This is a big offseason for the Blues.