(Photo : (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)) SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – JANUARY 26: Pavel Buchnevich #89 of the St. Louis Blues celebrates his aim throughout the third interval in opposition to the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on January 26, 2024 in Seattle, Washington.
The St. Louis Blues are within the thick of the race for the final wild card spot within the Western Conference, however that will not cease them from making strikes at March’s commerce deadline with the longer term in thoughts.
The calculus in conditions like these is all the time a large problem for entrance places of work, who must steadiness holding the locker room and the followers content material whereas making choices with the very best curiosity for the group’s future in thoughts.
For the Blues, it is pretty clear that the core as presently constructed isn’t in competition to win the Stanley Cup and that some stage of a retool is required to get again to that standing.
Young gamers like Robert Thomas, Jake Neighbours, and Jordan Kyrou seem like excellent constructing blocks for the Blues, however the group has an getting older protection that is not among the many league’s finest, so strikes to get younger distinction makers on the again finish are important.
The query then turns into about whether or not or not the market out there’s going to yield you the belongings you want for such a retool at a good or extra stage.
This 12 months appears to be like to be a vendor’s market on the commerce deadline, particularly on the winger place. If the Blues put Pavel Buchnevich in the marketplace, he is the clear prime winger out there (given the harm to Jake Guentzel) and comes with an additional 12 months of membership management.
If a group is prepared to cough up a first-round choose together with a prospect shut to creating a tangible affect on the NHL stage, the Blues must at the least take into account it.
Related Article: NHL Trade Deadline: Penguins F Jake Guentzel
NHL Trade Deadline: Pavel Buchnevich
Contract Situation: Signed by way of 2025 at $5.8 million cap hit
Season Stats: 22 targets, 24 assists for 46 factors in 54 video games
Possible Destinations: New York Rangers, Carolina, Colorado, Boston, Florida, Detroit, Edmonton
Buchnevich is an enormous, bodily winger who can sustain with quicker linemates and possesses high quality stick abilities and a powerful shot, and a latest hat trick in opposition to the New York Islanders caught the league’s consideration.
He has the precise talent set that may solid a participant as a serious X-factor in a playoff sequence, and in his one playoff look as a Blue he put up 11 factors in 12 video games in 2021-2022.
This is a novel state of affairs as Buchnevich is simply 28 years previous and nonetheless has one other 12 months left on his deal, opening up potential curiosity from groups that do not sometimes pay excessive costs for leases. The Carolina Hurricanes come to thoughts there, and so they have a number of gamers hitting unrestricted free company this summer time, which provides them some monetary flexibility.
The different group that makes a ton of sense is the one which drafted and developed Buchnevich within the New York Rangers, who dealt him to the Blues in 2022 for Sammy Blais and a second spherical choose. That commerce proved pricey for New York, who flipped the second together with a primary spherical choose for rental Andrew Copp in a 12 months they misplaced within the convention remaining.
Buchnevich has flourished in St. Louis, however the Rangers might very conceivably proper a fallacious and seize the massive Russian again for this 12 months’s and subsequent 12 months’s runs.
Read More: NHL Trade Deadline: Flames D Chris Tanev
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