After getting two first-round picks for his rental players Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko, St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong would eye winger Timo Meier or defenseman Jakob Chychrun.
Meier, 26, and Chychrun, 24, were showcased by their respective (under reconstruction) clubs, San Jose and Arizona.
As soon as O’Reilly left a few days ago, Armstrong hinted at the possibility of using his newly acquired picks to land prime players.
The general manager of the Blues would be in familiar territory, in the event of the arrival of a player with a similar profile. On June 23, 2017, he gave the Philadelphia Flyers two first-round picks, in 2017 and 2018, to get a center at the dawn of his 26-year-old Brayden Schenn.
Armstrong had acquired additional first-round picks in those two vintages by trading Kevin Shattenkirk at the trade deadline in 2017 and Paul Stastny in similar circumstances in 2018. Both were rental players, like O’Reilly and Tarasenko.
We wondered for a few years if the Blues hadn’t given too much for Schenn. He had amassed 70 points in his first season in St. Louis, but never more than 58 points thereafter, and his contribution had been all in all modest during the conquest of the Stanley Cup in 2019, although he had allowed the team to acquire a good depth.
Meanwhile, the two players drafted by the Flyers with Blues picks, Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee, were showing great promise.
Three years after the trade, Frost, drafted 27e rank in 2017, had a promising first season in the professional ranks at age 20, after two consecutive seasons of more than 100 points with Sault-Sainte-Marie, in the Ontario Junior League, and the leading scorer of the Canadian team at the 2019 World Junior Championship with eight points in five games. He was the team’s first center and helped relegate Nick Suzuki to the wing.
Drafted a year after Frost, at 14e rank, Farabee, a winger, got a regular job in Philadelphia at just 19 years old and had 21 points in 52 games in his first year. He would go on to score 20 goals in just 55 games in his second season.
Almost six years later, Brayden Schenn may not have become the big center he hoped for, but Armstrong hasn’t lost his bet.
Schenn is still at the center of the second line, at 31, and under contract for five more seasons at 6.5 million a year.
After amassing 58 points, including 24 goals, in 62 games last year, 77 points and 32 full-season goals, Schenn is 43 points in 57 games this winter – 62 points in 82 games – in a season harder offensively for a majority of players in St. Louis.
We haven’t given up on Frost in Philadelphia. In his fourth season in the professional ranks, soon to be 24 years old, Frost has a record of 27 points in 58 games at the center of a second line. He will probably not become the hoped-for center. And will he ever reach Schenn’s level?
As for Farabee, bad luck struck. After shoulder injuries, he underwent delicate surgery last summer to replace damaged cervical discs, an operation similar to that of Jack Eichel.
These injuries affected his performance. After a season of 34 points in 63 games last year, he has 26 points in 59 games this year on the wing of a third line. But he’s only 22 (23 in a few days) and he could revive his career with a good summer of therapy and training.
If it had to be done over again, Doug Armstrong would undoubtedly repeat this transaction, also given his aversion to rebuilds.
Schenn is coming off six good seasons, 319 points in 400 games, averaging 65 points per season over 82 games, and four straight playoff appearances.
Schenn’s presence in the line-up has also allowed Robert Thomas, the team’s first-round pick in 2017 and now the club’s first centre-back, to develop at his own pace, without the pressure of carrying the club on his shoulders. at 20 years.
“Trading Tarasenko and O’Reilly will not make [les espoirs] Jimmy Snuggerud, Jake Neighbors and Zachary Bolduc more mature and close to facing the rigors of the NHL, Armstrong explained this weekend to justify his plan to acquire prime-age players with his extra first-round picks. It’s my job not to ruin their careers and to avoid setting them up for failure. »
See how the current situation with the Blues looks awfully similar to that of 2017 with Brayden Schenn?
Ryan O’Reilly Daydream
Ryan O’Reilly could not have hoped for better, in his third game with the Maple Leafs: three goals and an assist, in a 6-3 victory against one of his former teams, the Buffalo Sabers, moreover. “I still can’t believe it,” he already confided after this magical evening. My family grew up in Toronto and today I wear this uniform. It’s unreal. »
After three games, O’Reilly now has five points, in the center of the second line with John Tavares on the left and Mitch Marner on the right. It’s already a quarter of his production in 40 games with St. Louis this season!
Who knows if the Leafs won’t be able to convince him to sign a contract extension, at a good price, by the end of the season or at the conclusion of it?