St. Louis Blues Rumors: New Defenceman Garnering Trade Interest

The St. Louis Blues have already headed towards a retooling as they sent Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola to the New York Rangers well ahead of the 2023 trade deadline. The team still has more moves yet to make and a few pending UFAs who will likely be moved as well. On top of the UFAs, the Blues have been receiving interest in defenceman Colton Parayko.

David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported that there are some whispers that a couple of teams have been aggressively poking around Parayko. He hasn't played the way he had a number of years ago and the Blues should definitely be looking at a potential trade.

A Parayko trade could be fairly complicated as he is in the first year of an eight-year, $6.5 million AAV contract that was signed in September of 2021. This was before the downfall and the need to retool the team as a whole. The Blues are paying four of their defencemen too much for the mediocre contributions they've given the team. Along with Parayko, Torey Krug and Justin Faulk also have cap hits of $6.5 million AAV while Nick Leddy is being paid $4 million. All four of them are locked in for at least three more years and all have no-trade clauses that could also make things harder.

They don't have any stars or a number one defenceman and Parayko has declined from the beast he was on the back-end during their Stanley Cup run. If they are going to change things around and there is an opportunity to move money out and retool the back-end, the Blues have to take it. Parayko isn't this young, highly touted defenceman he once was and is now 29 years old.