Summer Shocker! Blues trade Oshie

Another disappointingly early exit from the post season brought at least one huge off season move for the St. Louis Blues.

For a second straight season the Blues finished on top of its division, but couldn’t put together fourth playoff wins, falling this time in the opening round to the Minnesota Wild.

Not that the team was looking to the 2015 draft to fix what ailed it, but the problems might have been compounded a bit as management was forced to sit and watch the opening round in Florida, having traded away its 2015 (and 2016) first rounders in a deal that briefly brought Ryan Miller to town at the end of the 2013-14 campaign.

The Blues didn’t make a selection until late in the second round when Vince Dunn, a forward from Peterborough who put up decent numbers 18g and 38a in 68 games) with the Niagara Ice Dogs in the Ontario Hockey League.

After making a few moves on the opening day of free agency the Blues made a huge and controversial move on July 2, trading fan favorite forward T.J. Oshie, a US Olympian hero to Washington for Troy Brouwer, goaltending prospect Pheonix Copley along with a third round pick in next summer’s entry draft.

The Blues also lost veteran defender Zbynek Michalek (Phoenix) and Brent Regner, also a defenseman, to Florida on the opening day of free agency while resigning a trio – defenseman Chris Butler, center Pat Cannone and winger Cody Beach. Earlier the team resigned another minor league center, Jeremy Welsh.

Kyle Brodziak, a veteran forward from Minnesota came aboard on the same day Oshie left. His production fell off in Minnesota a bit during the past couple of season, but the team takes very little risk with this one, signing a one year, $900K deal.

The team also signed right wingers Danny Kristo (NY Rangers) and Jordan Caron (Colorado) while re-signing defender Robert Bortuzzo to a two year deal and adding another defenseman, Peter Harrold from New Jersey.

The key summer signing came about a week later and showed its intentions of building a team around right winger Vladimir Tarasenko when the Russian forward signed an eight year deal with a $7.5 million salary hit.

Veteran netminder Jake Allen re-signed with the team for two years at $2.35 million and also forward Magnus Paajarvi while adding defenseman Andre Benoit from Buffalo for a one year deal.