People that say the market isn' there for the type of move the blues need are clueless. We are not involved in any GM meetings nor do we know who is actually available. In most cases teams keep that stuff very confidential. You also have to take anything GM's say publicly with a grain of salt as Pocket pointed out ealrier, Armstorng totally contradicted himself. We also have no idea what the Blues can afford, it's all speculation at this point. As for what type of move i expect to made, we have so many holes its so unpredictable. But as I mentioned earlier, I think Giordano should be our target. I would offer something around Bergy and Cole for Gio. I also wouldn't be suprised to see a move for a top 6 forward who can put the puck in the net. I feel like all of our current forwards are expendable. We have no real differnce makers on our roster, you could basically just draw names out of a hat to make up our lines because there isn't much skill differnece among our top 9. Tarasenko seems to be the only legit playmaker, seems like everytime he touches the puck or shoots something good happens but he only plays 12 min a game.
Giordano is solid, but he's not great. He would be a better fix for a longer time than Leopold, but the price would obviously be much steeper. If the Blues cannot afford the asking price because it opens up other holes, that means the market isn't there.
Berglund, for example, would be very bad to move for Giordano unless the Blues were getting a center from somewhere else. Berglund and McDonald were far better in the playoffs than any other forward and the Blues need centers who can play on scoring lines and playoff performers. It's this kind of assumption about who is expendable and who is available and what the price is that seems far more clueless to me. Because most people aren't saying "There is conclusively no market," they're saying, "It's questionable, because what team is going to part with serious top talent?"
I seriously invite you to go down the list of teams and their contracts and tell me what players the Blues could bundle for first line or first pairing talent. I don't see how the assumption that a deal is out there is any better than the idea that if there is, it's probably too rich for the Blues' blood. It's not like there's NO suggestion that the Blues are on a tight budget. Check out their salaries compared to other teams in the league. Does that mean it cannot go higher? No, but it's NOT clueless or unfair to think it's not going much higher.
You can say you think the Blues need to make significant moves. You can say you think Armstrong will do it. I can buy a lot of reasons for those ideas, but the idea that people can't reasonably speculate about management decisions is broken and is founded in the same kind of absolutism you decry.
