Wow! Didn't realize Barbashev was having such an awesome year. What changed?

Pens accept

Pens accept

he got good

Wow, good for him.

hasnt petterson been pretty good this year

yup also doing playing 3rd line minutes

You're going to have to add if you want wings to take that contract

He has but we need to make room on the left side for POJ, so I could see at least 1 of Dumo or Pettersson being traded. And if we could get a solid top 6 winger on a cheap contract for Geno, that’d be perfect.

he's been ok, but this helps our cap situation

No a fan of either team...but my unbiased opinion is that St Louis takes an L here. Pettersson's numbers have been fine, but he's also a soon-to-be 26 year old who's still playing less than 16 minutes a night. Think the Blues should be able to do better for Barbashev.

That’s due to depth and pens having 5 Top 4 defensemen.

For me, I like Barbashev, but he'll never hit the totals he's hitting this year again. He's shooting 23 percent, lso 25/26, a solid forechecker, but I think this is his peak. And Petterson gives the Blues the top 4 LD guy they need for Parayko who can sit back and let Parayko do his thing. He's a lot cheaper than what Chychrun would be as well.

Because of the Blues forward depth, he's playing with top 6 forward players in a 3rd line role. Berube also has put increased emphasis on offense this season and allows for more creativity which helps.

He's always had the offensive skill, but he had gotten a little typecast on the Blues along with Sundqvist as this fourth line grind-and-defend guy after he played that role adequately in 2019. He is a grind-y type of player, but he's not the tightest defensively, despite his reputation, which always made him a rather poor fit for the fourth line even if he was an okay penalty killer, and really he should have been consistently playing up the lineup where better players could cover for him defensively while he cooks on offense.

What changed this year is he started shooting a lot more, a lot of his shots started going in, and a lot of his teammates' shots started going in while he was on the ice. He's shooting 22.5% which is very high but not completely out of line where he has shot before, but he has an on-ice shooting percentage of 14%, destroying a previous high of 9.5 and almost doubling his career average of 7.6% (and is almost certainly not sustainable). As such he's been granted a more permanent role in the top 9, better linemates and some power play time, which has snowballed into continued production. He's been put in a position to utilize the skills that were always there.

He's still very poor defensively, but if he's bringing the offense it will make up for it, especially considering he has some solid special teams utility too. The question teams have to ask themselves about him is will they be able to continue to put him in a position to succeed, even when his linemates inevitably stop scoring as much when he's on the ice. If he has a carved out top 9 role and sees special teams time, he will be a flawed but very useful power forward for you. If he's going to be on the fourth line and PK exclusively, he'll score enough goals and hit enough to make you look the other way but he's not going to be a very effective use of a cap space.

He definitely is the guy the Blues should move for defense help (considering they have a glut of forwards and at least two prospects in the mix for the top 9 next year) and I've always thought Pettersson and Parayko would play well together. And if he's playing with Malkin or Crosby that would probably be an even better situation than he finds himself in now playing with Schenn.

Yeah, I mean, it has the potential to be fine, I'm just really not sold on Pettersson's numbers being anything more than the result of protected minutes. Not saying that he's bad...I just wouldn't want to be stuck sitting on that deal for 3 more years if my theory was correct (and it may not be).

Sure, but having a solid top 4 allows means that those guys are playing the tough minutes, whereas someone like Pettersson likely benefits from protected matchups.

Detroit have better options but this is a good plan B in case they fall through.

I'm not sure I trust Pettersson as a top-4. Is this really even selling high?

He’s played best playing with Letang just as an fyi. And when everyone was injured which put him on the PK, our pk was 1st in the league and killed 30 something in a row. He hasn’t really played protected minutes. He’s mostly been part of a shutdown 2nd pair with Marino. Petty averages just over 15 minutes but they are all pretty much even strength minutes. Whereas someone like Matheson who averages 17-18 minutes but gets PP time. I think if you pair him up with an offensive guy where he can be the guy that just sits back and does the dirty work, he would thrive.

He doesn’t though. He plays a shutdown role with Marino as a 2nd pair. Matheson gets more minutes because he plays the power play. Wouldn’t say those are tougher minutes.

Before this season, I dont think the Blues could have traded Barby for Petterson 1 for 1. If a pick needs to be involved then so be it, but Barby only has one more season under contract whereas Petterson has 3.