Team: 2019-20 St. Louis Blues

Initial Creation Date: Aug. 22, 2020

Published: Aug. 22, 2020

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Here is what I would have done if I was the Blues since winning the cup. Please note this is not only a reaction to the playoff series (where they sucked!) but to the entire last season in general.

I think pretty much every major move the Blues have made since winning last year has been bad, and I think it's been born out in our underlying numbers this year.

Here's the good ones:

Extending Schenn: he scores, can play center,bonafide top-six guy, good underlying numbers, not too much money for all of that, so good deal.

Binnington's contract: I've never been sold on the "Binnington is an elite starter" narrative that mostly the NHL has been pushing by ranking him in the top ten goaltenders and what not, but the two year deal is perfect. I'm very big on the "don't pay for saves" thing though, so I'm probably not re-signing him after this contract, especially if Husso is ready to go. Not trying to base anything of the playoff series but feeling pretty good about that not-resigning him thing right now.

Here's the bad ones:

1. Signing Bouwmeester. I mean no disrespect to him, considering what he has been through. I really loved Bouwmeester's role and he was great for us for most of his career, but it really was time to move on. He had been one of the worst defensemen in the league for a bit, sidecar'd along on Parayko's elite back half of the 18-19 year, and we should have just let go once we won the cup. This isn't a hindsight thing with his injury. There were better free agents available and he was 36. Sorry Bouw, I'll always love ya.

What I would have done instead (WIWHDI): sign Jake Gardiner. Jake Gardiner had a very not good season in Carolina, but before that was top five in GAR the last three years amongst Leafs players, no small feat considering who his teammates were (that's a compliment to leafs forwards and an insult to leafs defense). His underlying numbers have always been very good. He would have been a tad more expensive than Bouw, but we would have gotten decent term and he fit in a position where we needed some depth for the future (if we were moving/losing Edmundson anyway- remember Perunovich had not yet signed and Mikkola/Walman were less established).

2. Extending Faulk. Look, I know a lot of people are tired of the Faulk bashing and credit where credit is due- he was our best defender in the bubble! But the fact is this extension was bad from the get-go. I personally don't think Faulk is a top four defenseman on a cup contending team and people probably disagree with that, but I think we can all agree that Faulk is elite at nothing, correct? The fact is you simply don't sign players who are elite at nothing to max deals. I can make some exceptions for not-elite forwards who wear a lot of hats, but certainly not for defenseman. Not only that, his cap hit eats into what we can offer Dunn and Pietrangelo, and forces us to move better players like Allen and Bozak if we want to keep both of those guys.

WIWHDI: Notice I still trade for Faulk. I'm not too high on Bokk and Edmundson's time was clearly up, I'm not against having Faulk for the one year as added depth when we had the cap space and an insurance policy if we can't come to terms with Pietrangelo. But no extension until that door is closed. And Carolina would have had to retain a little more to make it work cap wise. I still probably would have tried to trade for another top-six forward but there wasn't a lot of roster room on the team for that.

3. Trading Fabbri. I'm not as broken up about this as maybe Fabbri's position on the roster would indicate, but the fact is that we traded a scoring player for a defensive player and that was not what we needed. If I was the Blues I wouldn't have traded Fabbri until the following offseason. His value was simply at an all time low when we traded him, and that's never a good thing.

WIWHDI: It was a favor to Fabbri to do and I guess that was nice since he requested a trade, but I would have tried giving him a longer leash in the top six, especially once Tarasenko went down.

4. Trading for and extending Scandella. Scandella has only been above replacement level in contract years, dating back to his time in Minnesota. The pattern held again this year, where he was pretty good. It was especially dumb to extend him for that long knowing we'll have Perunovich and Mikkola pretty much ready to go within the first two years of his contract. If he slides back into the normal Scandella, he'll be outplayed by the other guys and he'll be tough to trade. Not only that, his cap hit eats into what we can offer Dunn and Pietrangelo, and forces us to move better players like Allen and Bozak if we want to keep both of those guys.

WIWHDI: We signed Gardiner instead of Bouwmeester so Bouwmeester's cardiac episode never happens and we don't have to trade for anyone or can use those picks to trade for a top six forward who scores.

In conclusion- I think this team is better set up to contend this year and keep their really good players (Pietrangelo, Dunn, eventually Thomas/Kyrou/Parayko/maybe Schwartz) than the team we currently have. There is a part 2 (and 3) which shows this.

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