you know when your a cup contending team like the blues i would use the 8.4 mil i have left in cap space

There’s no way Hoffman signs for that cheap. He’s coming off of two career years in Florida and will be looking to get paid. Guarantee he doesn’t take any less than 6 years, maybe 5 if you’re lucky, and no less than $6 million AAV and even then he’ll probably want a little more than that.

Calgary has like 5 or 6 LD I like more than Gunnarsson honestly

Minnesota doesn't have the cap space for this. Also doubt we're interested in giving up a 3rd for Bozak when we already have Eriksson Ek, Bonino, Johansson, Bjugstad, Rask and probably Rossi on the roster already.

1- Honestly, Bozak has more value to a team like the Blues than empty calorie scorer like Hoffman. He won't sign that cheap anyway.
2- We have no use for more defensemen.





Not when you have several key players to re-sign next summer.

yeah and that's a deal breaker for everyone as you can see he hasn't been signed maybe it changes his mind.

no because that puts us in a position like Toronto. Got the money up to the cap we wouldn't have room just like Toronto.

you could do 1 year deals

not really because who wants a 1 year deal in free agency.

Well, that would just be counter-productive. Besides, one-year deals cost more.

The financials of the league have literally everyone signing one year deals this year. Freaking Taylor Hall did it.

Not too many of those guys left though.

There is a difference tho. the 1 year deal that Taylor Hall signed is because of his injury riddled history, this is a prove it year, and if it works out he gets his big pay day we are trying to find stop gaps and the best stop gaps are looking within the organization to save on money.

We're talking about re-signing our key players, not signing new free agents. Two very different animals.

I'm not talking about our players, but one of you said we shouldn't use the cap space this year because we have players to sign next year. I think that's foolishly squandering the biggest advantage in the league other than elite players, which is having cap space.

I'm just talking about using the cap space we have to bolster our team and if we have 8.4 million in cap space this year (which we won't) he's right we absolutely should use it as we're in the midst of our window right now. Let's not pretend everything is good the way it is. There's weaknesses on this team that could be addressed via one year contracts that players are absolutely signing this offseason (and that was his implication by "you could do one year deals"). Whether that's signing a more established backup than Husso, or a better right shot defenseman than Bortuzzo or using a big chunk of it and swinging a trade for a bigger fish in the top six like Tatar or Buchnevich, like there's no point in just letting it sit there. Use it.

Obviously that depends on if the Blues are willing to spend to the cap, lots of teams have internal budgets, but it seems like we're planning on be a cap team so yeah spend the money.

Considering what's available, I'd rather take care of our guys early and season guys like Kyrou than go splurging on bad fits. A goalie being the exception, as we could surely find decent help if Husso isn't ready.

Well let's look at it this way. For tatar, and for Buchnevich they want Dunn, and Thomas those are the 2 guys they want in order to make those deals, and what better RD are we going to get than a solid defensively sound 3rd pairing in Bortz. Granlund sure, but I guarantee you Hoffman (who I hate), and Granlund are not going to want to take 1 year deals they want a long-term deal which WE can't afford.

That's just silly people on capfriendly. The reality is that most teams are at or over the cap so this is a buyer's market. Buchnevich, maybe a bit more expensive because he's younger (but also NY is going to need to shed salary if all their guys hit their performance bonuses), but look at the Brandon Saad trade for what Tatar is worth (and that was to a division rival!). Heck, Colorado got a top pair defenseman and a top six forward for two seconds and a bottom pair defenseman. Vegas is trying to shed people. Tampa is trying to shed people, Arizona, Vancouver, Anaheim need to make trades. So teams with cap space have the advantage and now the Blues are one of those teams.

As for Bortuzzo, I would sign and play Jan Rutta over him every day of the week. Similar defensive impact but Rutta is much much better at driving offense. Bortuzzo is not an everyday player. He's a good #7 who is good in limited minutes, is a pest, and a good locker room guy. But if we're playing him every day that's not a good thing.

I think guys like Hoffman and Granlund are going to end up signing one, maaaybe two year deals. That's been the trend unless you're an elite player (and even then not Taylor Hall- which you say is because he needs to recoup value and that's partially true but you don't think anyone would have given him 8x7? Idk). Gustaffsson, Kahun, Barrie, Janmark, Wallmark, Wennberg, Vesey, Galchenyuk, and now Duclair all signed one year deals. And sure, you could say that not many (if any) of those are top six forwards, but again- no contender has any cap space unless you consider Nashville a contender so realistically unless they're going to Evgeny Dadanov themselves to a bad team, they'll be taking a one year deal with a contender on the cheap (ish). They just don't have many other options.

And yes, I hope to god we won't sign Hoffman but the Blues rash of bad decision making recently makes me think they 100% will. Honestly we should trade for one of the Vegas guys and figure the cap stuff out next year. I don't think these re-signing that you guys are worried about are all that much to be worried about to the point that we can't add players now. We are losing someone to Seattle after all.

I get what you are saying, but I would like to improve long-term which would be cheaper to go via your own farm. Because 1-year deals if we are really gonna face it it's a stop gap. Granlund okay yeah he might be good goal scoring for now, but once we have to re-sign our guys and he's gone the guys we have to look at haven't improve through NHL time. Kyrou, Alexandrov, Joshua, Toropchenko, Kostin, (I firmly believe that Reinke is not a solution) but Reinke for Bortuzzo is an option. I'd like see them explore with Perunovich, and Tucker, and Mikkola. I would like to see a better backup but the best backups are all older guys, that if go down we don't have a better option. I wouldn't look at trading for one because I'm not so sure if anyone wants to trade their backups. I would like to see Halak, or Khudobin come our way, but its not very likely. I understand we are in win now, we have some issues to address, but not short-term I would like to see a trade rather than a signing, and it potentially include someone who has a huge contract that we can't afford anymore. In my opinion and I know a lot of people think it's a bad idea. Perron, Tarasenko, or Schwartz. One of them might be offloaded. I would look into trading for a different goal scorer that might be better performer, and maybe even one who gets less injured than Tarasenko. I don't think Granlund is that long-term guy. I'd rather look outward. I want Faulk off the books is what I really want , ,Scandella as well.

Yeah none of the UFAs are great, I was just speaking hypothetically if you have money to burn and don't want to give up any assets it's a quick way to improve the team short-term. 100% trade is the better route and that's more realistically what we're going to have available to us.

I guess if I'm looking at weaknesses for this team it's this:

1. Do we have enough scoring up front? Perron is older, who knows what you get in Tarasenko, Schwartz has been good lately but has a spotty injury history.
2. Backup goalie - kind of along the lines you were saying, what do we really have in Husso? He was good down the stretch in the A but had been pretty inconsistent before then. If he's not ready, we saw how that basically cost Toronto the playoffs last year.
3. Right side D - love me some Parayko but yeah I think Faulk is basically a third pairing defenseman at this point (that was true even going back to his Carolina days) and as I said idk that Bortuzzo is an everyday player ideally. Perunovich supposedly plays the right side occasionally so maybe this resolves itself eventually and I'd like to see him get a few reps next year.

So my top priority would be addressing scoring in the top six. We've got Sanford up there- some are optimistic, I am not convinced there's anything really there. I'd love to see him dangled as a trade chip for a legit twenty goal scorer.

I think it's tough to trade Perron without knowing Tarasenko's status and tough to trade Tarasenko because his value has never been lower. If you're content with taking a step back and writing off this season I think a Schwartz trade works to gain assets. But I think we can contend now in the prime years of O'Reilly, Parayko, Krug, Schwartz and Schenn, even Perron to some extent and would like to see us target one of these forwards from Tampa or Vegas now that we've got some cap room. Kilorn, Palat, Marchessault, or Smith I think would be a good addition to tide us over till Tarasenko is 100% and just for added depth afterwards. They've got some term. but their cap hits are not egregious enough to be prohibitive to us signing out guys next year.

I really think Vegas is a good partner. They need centers badly, the only natural center they have is Karlsson and their riding with Cody Glass in their top six with is not ideal. They're also over the cap, and we've got a bit of space. I made a trade for Marchessault (mostly cause he's been in the rumors and he and Perron are buddies) here that I think addresses both teams needs. And then with the expansion draft we'll probably lose a Perron or Sundqvist type and that + Bozak's retained + Gunnarsson clears enough space for us to get through.

Like you I'd like to see us run with a few of our other prospects and I think we will in the bottom six in the next few years as guys like Barbashev/Sundqvist/maybe even Blais leave the team or price themselves out. However, other than Kyrou I don't see any of our prospects being surefire (as much as prospects can be anyway) bets for the top six, so we gotta bolster that somehow. I am really high on Mikkola and Perunovich being quality NHLs and Perunovich could prove to be something really special.

As for Faulk, I think you gotta call Jim Rutherford and the Penguins every single day if you want to move him. Dude traded for Mike freaking Matheson, maybe he'll give us Letang for Faulk lol.

I still see Kostin having a chance at Top 6 although it's a stretch I think he could still be that guy. Gillies might be a guy to look at we did sign him, I'm not sure if he's better than Husso, but he has way more experience. I'm also high on Mikkola and Perunovich. Toropchenko might be close to ready he's a decent Middle 6-Bottom 6 guy. Joshua would be a very solid Checking line center if Barbashev does get dropped. I'd see Walker making it back on an NHL roster soon. If we take some of the money to get a Top Forward it's very beneficial, but I'm wondering what the cost would be. I'd be interested in seeing Sanford traded. He's very inconsistent. I honestly would love to see this as the defense as well.

Krug-Parayko
Dunn-New DFD
Mikkola-Perunovich

It works well in my honest opinion. I'd go for another Right winger as a preference on forwards.