St. Louis Blues' Best Trade Of The Past Year

The St. Louis Blues did as well as any team at the trade deadline since they made the decision they were too far out of a playoff spot and had many upcoming unrestricted free agents on their roster. They moved nearly every one of them.

First we'll cover the two blockbusters, then the two other trades to note that got them great returns. The Blues started early by trading Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola to the New York Rangers in exchange for Samuel Blais, Hunter Skinner, a first and a third round pick. A week later the Blues saw their captain depart to the Toronto Maple Leafs as Ryan O'Reilly and Noel Acciari were moved for Adam Gaudette, Mikhail Abramov, a first, second, and third round pick. Blais has eight goals and 18 points in 26 games after five assists in 40 games with the Rangers, while possibly only O'Reilly was going to re-sign in the summer. This doesn't mean he still can't after a playoff run with Toronto this season.

Closer to the deadline, the Blues traded upcoming UFA Ivan Barbashev to the Vegas Golden Knights for one of their best forward prospects, Zach Dean. This is a good return, but it will take a few years before we can properly judge it. On trade deadline day, the Blues then took on Jakub Vrana at 50% of his cap hit in exchange for Dylan McLaughlin and a seventh round pick. Vrana has provided nine goals and 12 points in 15 games at a cap hit of $2.625 million AAV for this season and next.

I say it comes down to getting Vrana for seemingly nothing or the trade with the Rangers as Tarasenko was definitely not re-signing, there's no room for Mikkola, and Blais has popped off. So we'll go with the latter since everything worked exactly how it was supposed to and Blais has had an immediate impact.