If our direction is to be worse next season than this I don't dislike any of the moves aside from the Leddy to Pittsburgh move.

However, as exciting as it is picking 10th vs 16th, I don't think it makes all too much of a difference once you look 5 years down the road. Don't get me wrong I would love for the Blues to trade up, but I don't think we're at the point where we can trade Binnington and not crumble. We may not make playoffs again next year, but after this year you have to expect the expectation would be to do so from the front office and from the players alone. Culture and belief in being able to win isn't something that's really too popular on here because you can't quantify it and compare. But I'd venture to guess if we made 2 or 3 moves to sell off pieces and finished towards the bottom of the league next year it would be crippling to the young core that we're building right now.

To be honest there's so many different things going on with this team right now that I can't tell what direction is the right way to go. Hopefully Doug chooses one.

By my assessment though, rougher goaltending would've made this season the low-water mark. Now that might still happen this-coming year - with or without a Binner/Hofer combo (goaltending can be fickle). As exciting and promising as some of the younger guys are, they're not all here yet. And the veterans are just getting another year older, slower, etc. Wouldn't be the worst thing to be patient for another year and try to make some low-risk, high-reward moves to set up for the future.

Well said. Couldn't agree more.

I would not pay a 1st for Binnington at 6 mill

Counterpoint: Binner has 3 years left. How many of those years will this team be cup contenders? if trading guys from a non-playoff team that aren't necessarily a part of the next cup window is damaging to the culture and belief of the hockey team, that just means we don't have a strong enough future core. It's a business, if a guy has trade value and trading him can help down the road, the guys that are still here are going to have to cope.

How would you go about fixing the goaltending? I don’t think Allen is the answer, he’s a good backup or 1B.

Ullmark would be my priority.

But if the goalie market is overpriced I'd rather focus on building the bottom 6 and Dcore.

I'd rather use that 1st and 6 mill to get a great LHD.

I’m more concerned about the Kyrou and Thomas iteration of the core. I’d consider those two and Parayko the core currently.

I think the most beneficial thing we could do would be to add a solid defenseman in the 24-27 age range. However in order to do that, we’re going to have to cut bait with either Krug or Faulk which I don’t think is a huge deal.

Ultimately I think the plan will be to middle out like this while contracts expire and then once they do make a large splash with a UFA defenseman if we can’t find one before. The issue with that is it’s rare those higher end caliber defenseman hit UFA status, because as we can all see, when you let one go you create a massive problem trying to stop gap or piece together the hole that’s left behind.

It’s definitely not a perfect plan, but there really is no perfect plan. I’d imagine we try and find a way to address a 2nd line center and move out a defenseman in hopes of adding another that can profile to be more of a two-way guy than we currently have.

I’d be shocked if our first pick in this draft was a forward, but there’s certainly an avenue where that could happen.

Truthfully I know it’s very unlikely, but I would move our 1st if we could get a guy like Harley out of Dallas.

Large UFA splash like shea Theodore next summer would be amazing altho Vegas has done the tough moves to keep guys around in the past so I won’t hold my breath.

you stuck with Leddy, that's no improvement for the penguins blue line.
While I don't like POJ, I'd rather swap him for another young player on another team than needs a change of scene.