Jeff Skinner is way better player than Colton Parayko, and is worth significantly more than him. Yeah Parayko has a lower AAV, but he has three more years and isn’t the player he used to be. Imo the blues should have to pay to dump him.

Yeah, the Blues don't even consider that.




Muh huh. Literally none of that is accurate. Some of it is so egregiously wrong it's stunning that one could declare it so authoritatively.

This isn’t the blue line that won the cup in 2019. This is an aging d core in steep decline, and even if they do their job the blues have a trash bin in net.

Jeff Skinner is significantly better than Colton Parayko lmao. I don’t even know how you could claim otherwise. Parayko is currently entering Johnny Boychuk levels of bad. On the other hand, Skinner’s analytics have always been solid. His production dipped when he was playing for a terrible HC, but he’s still a really ****ing good player. Overpaid yes. But not to the extent a guy like Parayko is.

TB counters Krebs for Koepke and a 3rd

Please provide a rational explanation for TB to consider this. TB doesn't care about draft picks and Colton has been MUCH much better than Mittlestadt and costs less. Julien Brisebois would have to be suffering with debilitating cognitive brain functions to make this bad of a trade.

You either don't watch Ross Colton or are an extremely lousy talent evaluator if you believe that. Especially at the Nikita Kucherov price tag Skinner comes in at.

I love Ross Colton’s game. I said Jeff Skinner was better than Colton Parayko.

Skinner is overpaid but has produced very well for the Sabres over the past two years. I’d rather have him than a defenseman in steep decline like Colton Parayko. My original comment has NOTHING to do with Ross Colton.

My mistake and apologies then.

You are all good.

mokumboi can't actually be a real person. He has to be doing a bit. Like yeah, it leaves a hole we would have to instantly address but he thinks Parayko is prime Shea Weber or something.

I wouldn’t trade Parayko for that either.

Do you realize how long/difficult it would be to replace Parayko?

Parayko is not a shell of himself. The d core around him is significantly worse than that 2019 team. Not to mention the schemes are wildly different than what we had at that point in time.

We have 3 defensemen who’s weakness is in their own zone of our top 4 paid defensemen.

If you’ve watched the last 3 games there’s a noticeable difference in the shots that Hofer is facing (he has been fantastic though) verse what had been coming at the goaltenders most of the season.

What’s the reasoning? The Parayko- Leddy pair hasn’t been used as a 24 minute a night matchup pair and the Faulk - now Scandella pair isn’t being given 65% oz starts against weak competition.

Parayko is the same exact player he has been since 2019. The issue is the expectation for many was for him to be Pietrangelo, which he’s not. The outside perspective of Parayko is comical at best. This offer is not bad, but unless we draft Reinbacher this season there’s no shot we’re competitive in 3 years. RHD who specialize defensively and put up 30 points a season just aren’t available. You can find one who can do one or the other but you aren’t finding both

I don't disagree. Like I said, it leaves a big hole in our already bad D corps. It's not a trade either team would make, but the value given to the Blues heavily favors them here. Delusional to suggest otherwise. With the assets gained, we could replace Parayko and still gain a solid winger in Skinner. I reiterate, it's not a realistic trade, but the value is heavily in our favor.

I'd ask how many times you've watched the Blues play in the last year, but I already know the answer. All of these takes are so woefully ignorant or just plain factually wrong by a mile (Parayko has three years left!) that the worst columnist at THW would be embarrassed. Parayko plays the hardest minutes of ANY Dman in the league, has arguably the worst top pairing partner in the league and his volume of total stops is top 10 in the league. Try watching some hockey.

If we take those assets for Parayko, how do you suggest we are going to replace Parayko?

Let’s look at the avenues that we have.

1. Draft - there’s a chance a guy like Reinbacher instantly has the impact Seider has had. That’s far from a guarantee. We’d be extremely lucky to get a top 4 D out of the draft in their D+3 it’s not likely, this draft is pretty rough for defensemen and extremely strong for forwards. Do we want to be the team that reaches on Reinbacher and hope he develops quickly?

2. Internally - not an option. Won’t be an option unless the player comes from this or a future draft class.

3. UFA -
2023 options - Klingberg, Dumba, Severson, Mayfield, Eric Johnson, Hamonic, Gudas, Schenn.
2024 options (if they make it) - DeAngelo, Myers, Pesce, Barrie, Tanev, Zaitsev

Of that Pesce is the only option that could adequately fill the hole. But that brings about the question, what do you do for the 24 season?

4. Trade. Who do we target that is a RD capable of playing 20++ a night and doing so with a partner who is lacking defensively yet not necessarily capable of moving the puck out of the zone or helping offensive production regularly? Or do you just say forget it we’ll try and out score our problems? There’s no good answer here, better yet there’s no option in which we are better off than keeping Parayko. The only option that would make sense or be somewhat logical would be getting a young top end D back, or getting a guy like Jokiharju someone young but has clear deficiencies and hope they can build with the core and be productive enough to not fully sink the ship and load a bunch of futures on top of said player. But who A has the young defenseman they’re willing to move and B has the cap space and is willing to pay the price?

Parayko has 3 more years left than skinner.

Personal attacks are a poor substitute for objective analysis. I’m not gonna pretend I’ve seen twenty blues games this year, but I’ve seen more than two lol. I can give you my honest assessment of Parayko’s play during that time. I can point to the analytics community which is not a fan of him. If all you have to say is a bad joke about the hockey writers, then maybe you should just go “Watch some hockey,” and pretend nothing is wrong in St. Louis.

Based on the eye test and the analytics, the blues should take what they can get for Parayko then run for the hills.

https://twitter.com/arhockeystats/status/1630671063037231105?s=46&t=MS3qI22IkOxLuwbOnmNI1g

Also based on the stats Parayko plays some of the hardest minutes in the NHL for any defensemen and he does it with a meh partner in Leddy. Plus Faulk has been bad this year and Krug was never a good defender. He's the only defender on our team that has been decent but he has been getting swamped. If we look at the last month or so with Scandella returning he has been much better because it allows the blues to shelter Krug on the 3rd pairing, have Scandella/Faulk taking some of his minutes and reducing his workload. Parayko is still a good 2nd pairing defensemen but the blues have been making him play harder minutes than even Pietrangelo played. Even Parayko in his prime didn't get the minutes and matchups he is getting now. At the end of the day he is much more valuable to the blues than to any team that wants to trade for him because they wouldn't pay the blues what they wanted. As for the package it's doesn't reflect the needs of the blues. Skinner is a winger and we already have too man of those (Buchnevich, Kyrou, Vrana, Kapanen, Saad). Also our top 3 propsects are wingers (Neighbors, Snuggerud, Bolduc) so Rosen really isn't a need for us. If you don't want to pay a big price for Parayko I can understand that. But the blues wouldn't trade him for a package that doesn't suit their needs.

Dude, you don't even understand what a personal attack is. I criticized your commentary, which is obviously beyond awful. Of course, you can point to the analytics crowd that only "watches" hockey from a stat sheet because you've parroted their clueless takes and then exaggerated them beyond the pale. The Blies are obviously not trading Parayko for A) a winger, which is the last of their needs & B) someone who eats basically all the cap going out the door. Of course, one would need to understand the Blues just a tiny bit to know that.

I never said they would trade him for Skinner. I said skinner was more valuable. You need to understand the difference.

The reality of the situation is that Parayko looks like Boychuk did right after he signed his contract extension with the isles in 2015. He’s still capable, but injuries are taking a series tole on him. If you can trade him for picks you do it imo.

I didn't say you did, but this AGM has him traded for Skinner. That is what is being discussed here. But honestly, you can have the thread, this is extremely boring.

Lol all good. It was a kind of out there proposal anyway.