Montreal Canadiens: Three Trades That Add Future Piece Without Giving Up Anything

St. Louis Blues

The St. Louis Blues are in far more cap trouble than the Jets. They can blame themselves for that, but they are now trying to find enough money to re-sign captain and star defenceman Alex Pietrangelo.

Maybe, just maybe they should have thought about that before inking Justin Faulk and Marco Scandella to fat extensions shortly after acquiring both. Priorities.

The Blues are showing just about $5 million in cap space heading into next season but need to re-sign Vince Dunn. Oh yeah, and Pietrangelo who is going to be a free agent in eight days. He would want at least $8 million on his own, so the Blues need to shed at least $5 million to make things work.

They do have two options to move to come up with that space. Well, three if you include build a time machine and don’t give Justin Faulk the same cap hit as Patrik Laine, Brayden Point and Ivan Provorov. Their other two options are to move out Tyler Bozak or Alex Steen.

Bozak is still a solid third line centre though his offence dipped from 38 points in 2018-19 to just 29 last season. Steen has seen his production drop way off. He had 46 points in 2017-18, but since then had put up seasons of 27 and 17 points. He had just five in 26 playoff games when the Blues won the Stanley Cup in 2019.

Both players have one year left on their current contracts. Bozak will earn $5 million against the salary cap and Steen will count for $5.75 million. Bozak comes a little cheaper and can still play a shutdown role while killing penalties and winning faceoffs. Steen isn’t a liability defensively either as he still takes on a huge role while shorthanded, but he is 36 years old and his offence is gone.

The Habs could likely acquire Bozak and get a second round pick for their troubles. But Steen would get them a slightly better return.