The Blues and Brady Tkachuk are a match made in heaven, but how about reality?
It may take a little payroll and player moving, but it's not impossible.
Should the St. Louis Blues trade for Brady Tkachuk?
Is the Pope catholic?
Both answers to the above questions are met with a resounding YES. The Ottawa Senators forward is a better match for the Blues than his brother, Matthew, who created some bells and clatter two years ago when he was on the block. The trade block has reports with Brady potentially being dealt this upcoming deadline transaction period.
The Blues are still a fringe playoff team, currenting sitting in third (and shit out of luck) place in the wildcard standings. They were in control of the second spot until their play returned to .500 action more than dominant, where it was before their ten day break in the first part of this month. Now, the Nashville Predators have won five games in a row and sit at #2 under Los Angeles. The Calgary Flames have won three games in a row, pulling to within one point of St. Louis.
The Blues are tied with Minnesota with 62 points for the current prize of a box of steak knives. A trade for a guy like Tkachuk changes things, pushing the team back into the control of the wildcard and maybe into a bigger picture. Don’t overlook Brady just because Matthew is the more flashier of the two on the ice.
Brady is 24 years old, and posting 25-30 goal/65-80 point seasons on the regular already. He’s also no stranger to dropping the gloves and tossing fists, something he did recently with the Blues’ Tyler Tucker. He’s a throwback to his dad, Keith, who played some great years in St. Louis and has maintained a close relationship with the organization since his retirement.
Brady Tkachuk will score goals, put up points, push the initiative rather than wait for it to happen, and truly help the scoring problem around the team. Their defense still isn’t solid, but it’s improved thanks to the elevated play of Colton Parayko and the unit should get a nice boost from the return of Justin Faulk this week to game action. Jordan Binnington is holding down the fort and then some in net, with Joel Hofer providing ample support at the backup position. Drew Bannister has rounded a chaotic roster into *better* shape.
They need goals, and Brady can solve that dilemma. He’ll add points, and make several other players better around him. He’s the giant kick in the ass that this talented yet uneven team needs. The fit is near perfect, but the plays required to pull it off could even test the master thief himself, Doug Armstrong.
He LOVES these kinds of trades, searching for them like Jodie Foster searches for killers in the arctic cold. He’s pulled them off with the likes of Ryan O’Reilly and Brayden Schenn. Don’t expect the latter to be trade bait so Armstrong can make room on the payroll for Tkachuk, whose cap hit is $8.2 million. For a young stud who is only going to get better, that’s not a bad price, especially when you consider the tab for Parayko sits at $6.5 million.
He’s the guy you move to acquire Tkachuk. Due to draft picks accumulated in the Ryan O’Reilly trade last season among other deals, the Blues have a bevy of young and untouched talent that other clubs would savor. If you pair that with a Parayko, or another Blue who clears decent annual cash, the dreamy scenario of Brady in St. Louis blue and gold becomes more realistic.
Think of the merchandise and city-wide revenue stream that could be opened up with a local star player coming to town. There’s enormous potential.
Why would the Senators need Parayko? They are currently allowing the fifth highest goals-against-average in the NHL (3.51), so it definitely wouldn’t hurt them or the Canadian defenseman who has grown into a polarizing talent in St. Louis. It’s not a total change-of-scenery renewal, but the hurt would be significantly less for him to take his talents to Ottawa?
The only real problem: Parayko has a FULL no-trade clause from 2022-2027. After that, it becomes 15 teams. Does he accept a trade to Ottawa?
Brady fits the team needs to a tee, because he’s a two-way player with huge upside who is only settling into year-to-year stud mode. His salary is only a hurdle to climb if your team is full of roadblocks, like the ones Armstrong ran into with Torey Krug and Kevin Shattenkirk in years past. Like I said last month, he dug this hole and getting a great player could be too tall of a hurdle.
Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas are going nowhere, and trading Schenn would be a wild move. Binnington is a complete no-go, unless you’re ready to see Hofer for 65 starts per season. Parayko is one of the best trade chips the Blues have, outside of their draft picks and young core.
It makes the acquisition of Tkachuk more of a dream than a real thing, at least at the moment, or unless Parayko sees fine fortune in Ottawa, where they’ve made the playoffs twice in the last ten seasons and haven’t qualified since the 2016-17 season.
This is where the hardness of being a sports fan can hurt. The ability to improve is right there, and the general manager fucked it up. If Parayko doesn’t have a no-trade clause or maybe just a partial, a deal may get done. This is why this wouldn’t happen in baseball, especially under the control-happy eyes of John Mozeliak. Congrats, Doug, you’ve found a way to be more annoying than Mo.
While not impossible, I wouldn’t hold my breath on a Brady Tkachuk deal, unless Armstrong can move a sustainable combo of smaller contracts.
After another loss and this team freefalling into the depths of a non-playoff spot it looks like Buchnevich is out the door!! The offense 5v5 has been non-existent and now the power play has disappeared. Given the differences in ages between Buchy and Brady , the Blues should be kicking the tires off the car to get this deal done instead of extending Buch. Brady would be the sandpaper that this team sorely needs.