That Leddy contract is gonna be a problem…

Not sure how you can expect Kyrou to take 5m after Thomas just got 8, unless he regresses this season.

I didn't realize O'Reilly's contract was up at the end of this season, in my head he still had several years left.

Yeah like I feel schenn will have to go or become 2C and ROR walks

Torp is not a center. And Bolduc will likely be in the team by this time, so no need to spend on so many 4th line guys (Sanford isn't a 4th line guy anyway). And obviously, the Kyrou and Barby signings are not realistic.

So is it looking less likely for ROR?

He'll be re-signed, I presume. I don't at this time foresee them being able to keep Barby, plus you've spent a fair amount of things that may not/won't be needed. Even Raanta falls into that category.

The numbers bandied around for O'Reilly by "knowledgeable" people have been significantly less than I thought they would be- in the four year/5.5 million range. If that's the case then I don't foresee keeping him being a big deal.

Realistically the team is going to have to take a step back after next season, or Armstrong will have to pull another Buchnevich/O'Reilly out of his hat. Unless Leddy is the transformative presence the Blues and Blues fans seem to think he'll be (I have my doubts) the defense is still going to be an issue, and after losing Perron our forward group will be getting weaker yet again with the loss of Tarasenko+Barbashev (and realistically the odds are against Barbashev being anywhere near as good as he was this year anyway). While we have young guys coming up to replace them we don't have anyone with truly exciting skill level (maybe Bolduc) in the vein of Thomas/Kryou. Add in the question mark of Binnington after a truly abysmal season, truly incredible playoffs, and now injury with no real safety net behind him and I the Blues are going to need to do some more transformational stuff this offseason to set up a new window.

They've done this before, after 2016, so I guess I'm not surprised, but I do feel like this was more than a little self inflicted with all these unnecessarily long contracts for players that are just fine. I was hoping they would be proactive with the reshapping and nab Tkachuk this offseason but what can you do.

All those contracts on defense are going to be problems.

Honestly yeah lol