I would rather have EJ right now than Shattenkirk, Just sayin' ...
I think a lot of Blues fans let their immediate judgements cloud their views on that trade.
Stewart was a bust, and we gave up the higher pick. We think that Shattenkirk fits our team better, but we haven't really done anything in the playoffs with him until this year. I don't want to give Parayko too much credit for this year, he definitely slowed down in the playoffs, but it was a factor.
Shattenkirk is better in his role than EJ. But I do wonder if the team would have done better with 2 more traditional #1 type defensemen over the past 5 years.
Ignoring the current Shattenkirk contract situation, I certainly don't count that trade as a win. Certainly wasn't a terrible trade, but it is at best lateral.
Another factor when it came to trading EJ was our projection of Berglund. The organisation still believed he was going to be at least a very good #2C at that point. Had we not thought that, we might have been looking for a different return.