Proposal: MTL - STL

[bud12]

A 5th for Kyrou or Guhle for Thomas...

They say that the best trades are the ones both sides feel the pain.

Losing Guhle, our 22 year old defensive cornerstone is going to hurt a LOT. He's our physical Weber without the canon. Well, he does have a canon but is defensivly focused. As I'm sure losing Thomas is going to hurt too.

The only upside is that if Mailman and Hutson are the real deal, Habs are going to contend in a few years. If those two are meh, we filled a hole and just made a hole in our defense.

STL wouldn't move Thomas for Guhle

 

[HabsAddict]

What if #5 was off the table but the deal was built around Kyrou and Guhle as the two main pieces?

No.

Kyrou is good but not worth our 22 year old defensive cornerstone. 5th OA is more of a gamble for us because we need a forward were you guys have a huge selection of high quality defenseman.

From our perspective, on a sliding scale, there is Z, Mercer and Frost that are better or cost us less.

STL wouldn't move Thomas for Guhle

Then we can still be friends, but no trade.

See other post on why we can move 5th before Guhle.

 

[Junohockeyfan]

What if #5 was off the table but the deal was built around Kyrou and Guhle as the two main pieces?

No

 

[Thallis]

A 5th for Kyrou or Guhle for Thomas...

They say that the best trades are the ones both sides feel the pain.

Losing Guhle, our 22 year old defensive cornerstone is going to hurt a LOT. He's our physical Weber without the canon. Well, he does have a canon but is defensivly focused. As I'm sure losing Thomas is going to hurt too.

The only upside is that if Mailman and Hutson are the real deal, Habs are going to contend in a few years. If those two are meh, we filled a hole and just made a hole in our defense.

Guhle is not going to return a center who's in the mix for top 10 in the league.

 

[HabsAddict]

Guhle is not going to return a center who's in the mix for top 10 in the league.

Nor can we fill a hole and make a hole.

He's our top defenseman and top 4 on any team.

If that is not enough, we move on...

 

[Benstheman]

Nor can we fill a hole and make a hole.

He's our top defenseman and top 4 on any team.

If that is not enough, we move on...

Agreed and Thomas is not a need.

 

[bud12]

Nor can we fill a hole and make a hole.

He's our top defenseman and top 4 on any team.

If that is not enough, we move on...

If you can trade Guhle for Thomas, you doing it without hesitation and you draft a D with the 5ov to cover the lost of Guhle. We are talking about a c who is even better than Suzuki here. We would automatically have one of the best center deep in the nhl.

 

[Memento]

There's no one player on your team that I think would be worth Thomas, who had almost 90 points on a team who had almost no offense aside from him (Kyrou and Buchnevich had down years for them, and Neighbours was a surprise, but I expect him to be a middle-six player, and he was played as a top line player because we had nobody else). I mean absolutely no offense to the Habs when I say this; it's just that Thomas is by far our best all-around player on an absolute steal of a contract.

The Blues entirely lack center depth behind him at the moment; Dvorsky is talented (reminds me of Kopitar-lite - stylistically, not at all saying he's going to be Kopitar, but his style of play reminds me of him), but he's still a ways away. Dean is also talented, but still very young and learning the NHL game, and he's probably a third-line center for us. We were playing Kevin Hayes and Brayden Schenn as our number two centers. If we traded Thomas, not only would we be trading our best player, but our only current top-six center option. It would crater our center depth and offense.

So for those reasons, I'd decline a Thomas trade for any one or two assets.

Kyrou is more interesting but given that we lack game-breaking wingers as it is (I'm pretty sure we're going to trade Buchnevich for a late first in this year's draft. Neighbours impressed, but he still would be a middle-six winger on a better team, Snuggerud will play another year at Minnesota, Stenberg will play another year or two in Sweden, and Bolduc is still very young.), I'd also have to decline a Kyrou trade. It would be tough to give up a chance at the #5 pick and a game-breaking defenseman, but I don't think Montreal would do that for Kyrou, and without Kyrou - and likely Buchnevich - our scoring depth dries up completely.

So, for those reasons, I'd have to politely decline both Thomas and Kyrou trades. I think Kyrou is well-thought; it's very tempting, but I still want to roll the dice and hope his offense regains its old heights while still improving on defense like he did this year.

 

[EastVillageBlues]

I would do #5 and any young D in the system but Guhle, Hutson, Reinbacher + a long shot like Kidney or Tuch. Would sting to give Mailloux along with #5 but I'd probably bite on it. I'd guess he's young enough for St. Louis to keep and continue building around in any case

Yeah, I can definitely understand why you wouldn't move Guhle in a trade along with another important asset. Thomas is certainly more valuable than just the #5 or Guhle each by itself though.

Not saying that you should, but if you offered #5 and Reinbacher, I think that would be an offer very hard to turn down, even for a #1 center. Especially in the case of the Blues, whose future blueline basically consists of one may-be top 4 player when developed right, and a bunch of other prospects that have no good potential beyond #7 D, or have significant development setbacks, or simply can't stay healthy.

If that's the offer, then even though I would still be highly reluctant to deal Thomas, it would be very hard to say no to. It would basically solve all of our problems on future D. I am sure that a number of other Blues followers would also be highly tempted.

 

[BleedBlue14]

Yeah, I can definitely understand why you wouldn't move Guhle in a trade along with another important asset. Thomas is certainly more valuable than just the #5 or Guhle each by itself though.

Not saying that you should, but if you offered #5 and Reinbacher, I think that would be an offer very hard to turn down, even for a #1 center. Especially in the case of the Blues, whose future blueline basically consists of one may-be top 4 player when developed right, and a bunch of other prospects that have no good potential beyond #7 D, or have significant development setbacks, or simply can't stay healthy.

If that's the offer, then even though I would still be highly reluctant to deal Thomas, it would be very hard to say no to. It would basically solve all of our problems on future D. I am sure that a number of other Blues followers would also be highly tempted.

It would also blow a massive hole in our outlook for the next 8 years. Thomas is an all situations 1C who is putting up over a PPG in a lot of matchup situations at 24. He’s signed to 8m/yr throughout the entirety of his prime.

I love draft capital, but you aren’t convincing me that either Reinbacher or whomever is drafted at #5 are going to have the same impact to a franchise over the course of 7 years as Thomas and a replacement level player.

That’s a fools gamble.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Why are we "let's trade Thomas" right now? This is nonsense. We dont trade Thomas that would be a move to completely screw our retool/rebuild.

 

[EastVillageBlues]

It would also blow a massive hole in our outlook for the next 8 years. Thomas is an all situations 1C who is putting up over a PPG in a lot of matchup situations at 24. He’s signed to 8m/yr throughout the entirety of his prime.

I love draft capital, but you aren’t convincing me that either Reinbacher or whomever is drafted at #5 are going to have the same impact to a franchise over the course of 7 years as Thomas and a replacement level player.

That’s a fools gamble.

Well, I didn't even say that I would do it, just that #5 + Reinbacher would be very hard to say no to. It basically vaults our future D depth from bottom of the league to somewhere respectable. And those two players, while not the sure thing, aren't as risky as you make them out to be. They would almost certainly be NHL players, and likely top 4 at some point. The real question is if they would take that next step to be top pairing.

A risk for sure, but very high reward as well, for a position we really haven't had any luck at all since Dunn, whom we foolishly let go instead of other lesser players.

 

[stl76]

Well, I didn't even say that I would do it, just that #5 + Reinbacher would be very hard to say no to. It basically vaults our future D depth from bottom of the league to somewhere respectable. And those two players, while not the sure thing, aren't as risky as you make them out to be. They would almost certainly be NHL players, and likely top 4 at some point. The real question is if they would take that next step to be top pairing.

A risk for sure, but very high reward as well, for a position we really haven't had any luck at all since Dunn, whom we foolishly let go instead of other lesser players.

I think you are seriously underrating Robert Thomas. Trading him for a 5th overall + Reinbacher is madness IMO…and I’m a big Reinbacher fan.

 

[EastVillageBlues]

I think you are seriously underrating Robert Thomas. Trading him for a 5th overall + Reinbacher is madness IMO…and I’m a big Reinbacher fan.

Not sure what you are thinking with "seriously underrating", very few players out there would be worth two top 5 picks. I would have a lot of hesitation as well, but if that's the offer, I would have to think really really hard about it.

 

[Blueston]

Not sure what you are thinking with "seriously underrating", very few players out there would be worth two top 5 picks. I would have a lot of hesitation as well, but if that's the offer, I would have to think really really hard about it.

the good thing about deal like that is you would effectively be getting 3 top 5 picks- reinbacher, 5 this year, and blues pick next year when we are bottom team without our only legit center. even for player as good as thomas, that is quite a haul.