St. Louis Blues' Top Trade Candidate This Season

The St. Louis Blues have a number of key upcoming free agents, all at forward, and they aren't in a good place to make the playoffs right now. There's a few teams in their way and are showing no signs of turning things around.

Among the upcoming free agents are Ryan O'Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Ivan Barbashev, and Noel Acciari. O'Reilly stands out as the top trade candidate for the team seeing as he's a former Selke Trophy and Conn Smythe Trophy winner.

He isn't having a good year by any means and he is the first one to call himself out for that. O'Reilly has nine goals and 15 points in 33 games on the season and surprisingly ranks third on the team in goals. For a great two-way player, his plus/minus has been horrible. It is -24 while the next closest forward has just a -16. He has still been working hard to turn the season around, but with most of the team having trouble staying consistent, it looks like the Blues are going to get what they can for some of their players in the final years of their contracts.

There is lots of interest in O'Reilly around the league, especially from contenders looking to get out of the first round. With a cap hit of $7.5 million, salary will have to be retained by the Blues, but it looks like the team is headed in a younger direction.