I’d say Gunnar is the obvious guy to trade if they can, especially if Schmaltz shows he can play at this level, but I just don’t see Gunnar as an overly desirable piece. He’s an NHL caliber d-man but I’d think the + would have to be pretty decent to get another team to give us a middle-6 RW in return.
But Gunnar or someone making at least decent cash will have to go for it to fit under the Cap. The Blues already had a tight cap situation but it’s even tighter now since, as of today anyway, both Schwartz and Petro are on IR, not LTIR, so they along with Barbashev and Schmaltz are all counting against the Cap now.
St. Louis Blues - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps
The Blues are now down to having projected trade deadline cap space of $224k. They’re not going to be able to add anyone unless salary in pretty much matches salary out. And Cap space today is $77k (virtually nothing in a cap of $75 million) so money going out would be even more important today than at the trade deadline...AND they’re going to need to keep enough wiggle room so that they can continue to add guys from the minors if/when more injuries occur.
Note: I wouldn’t be surprised if Schwartz found his way onto LTIR. LTIR means he’d have to miss a minimum of 10 games or 24 days and he’s easily projected to miss more than that. But putting Schwartz on LTIR would really just help in the event they needed more guys from the minors as they’d eventually need to take him off LTIR and fit him back under the cap 6 or so weeks from now. The only time LTIR really helps a team is when a guy is hurt during the season (and before the trade deadline so the team can add someone else) and then that player magically returns at the start of the playoffs, where there is no salary cap (ie. Patrick Kane’s broken collarbone a few years ago).