What Blues reclamation project has turned out lately? And no Schenn isn’t a reclamation project.
If Schenn isn't a reclamation project than I'm not sure Galchenyuk is either. Galchenyuk was on pace for 59 points last year and had 55 the year before. Schenn had 55 last year and 59 the year before. In 14/15, the two players had 46 and 47 points. There wasn't a public animosity between Schenn/Philly like there is in Montreal, but it was pretty clear the Flyers didn't trust Schenn at center and we clearly went into camp hoping we could make him work at center. Schenn is a better defensive player by a long shot, but he is also two and a half years older and wasn't producing offensively nearly as much as Galchenyuk has in his early 20s.
We acquired Schenn clearly hoping that he would be better for us than he was in Philly, but assuming that he wasn't going to get worse. How is that different from Galchenyuk? Outside of this season, Galchenyuk's status was a 45-60 point guy who is terrible defensively. That's a ton closer to Schenn than it is the failed reclamation projects like Yakupov. I'm not sure he is a good fit on the Blues given our LW surplus and his contract, but I think it's disingenuous to say that we have had a bad track record with reclamation projects if that label doesn't apply to Schenn.
If your definition of reclamation project is limited to guys like Yak and Paajarvi, than Galchenyuk shouldn't be included in that group. Those two players were on the cusp of being out of the league based on multiple bad seasons. Galchenyuk might not be the star Montreal thought they drafted, but he's still a long way away from being out of the NHL. Galchenyuk has had a brutal start to the year, but he is currently on pace to have his first sub 40 point pace season (on pace for about 30 points). Yak and Paajarvi each had multiple sub-40 point seasons before getting acquired as a reclamation project. We're talking about a 22 game sample vs 200+ game samples.