This is getting OUT OF HAND…

This is getting OUT OF HAND…

Things are getting out of hand. After losing two consecutive games this weekend and blowing a lead, the St. Louis Blues have trade talks intensifying as Doug Armstrong has huge decisions to make with his roster and veterans moving into the remainder of the season. We’re going to break down these reports around one key player on the St. Louis Blues as trade talks intensify and how the St. Louis Blues continue to struggle. We have so much to break down in this episode, dear. So, let’s just dive straight into where last week we were talking about the St. Louis Blues had a bit of a run getting points in consecutive games. We seen the games minus the one versus Washington. Everyone has a bad game. You get four a year, but the biggest thing is losing backtoback. Now, you have three stinkers in a row over the past two weeks. You see the game versus Washington. They blow the lead versus Billy. And then you go in to get blown out with Brandon Sod scoring his first of the season versus the Blues. Darius, before we get into these trade talks, what is your thoughts on the Blues? We know they’re struggling. The veterans on the team are coming out just to speak that there’s not enough urgency. What is your thoughts on this? Yeah, not enough desperation, urgency. Like these are all words that they’re using some of the players to describe what’s going on right now. And none of that is what you want to hear, right? None of that makes fans feel better. That’s for sure. And like you brought up, you get a couple stinkers a year, but you don’t get three stinkers over the m, you know, the course of two weeks. This is absolutely ridiculous at this point. So, uh, and not only that, I mean, you could lose 4-1 to Vegas. Vegas is a pretty good team, right? Those types of games happen over the course of a season. I think the worst one was Friday night. I mean, Friday night was ridiculous. You’re up by two goals uh, in the third period. You have to lock that game down. You have to do that. And for a team that’s notorious for, you know, being a little bit better in terms of defensive structure, the goalending there, at least when you look at last year, right? Um, that’s not something that you want to do. I mean, any team wants to do. So, that one was even more ridiculous to me. And as you have up here, you know, the standings, they’re falling deeper and deeper down the standings at this point. It’s going to get really tough to climb their way back into the playoff uh pitcher at this point. So, uh, things are not going well and that obviously sparks trade rumors, trade reports, all of those things. And a lot of insiders are now talking about what that looks like and that the Blues might be open to business or any business at this point, taking calls on a lot of players. So, that makes things very interesting for this team moving forward and how they want to conduct the rest of their season. But all of that to say, uh, you can’t lose games the way that they did, especially on Friday night. Like that kind of we were talking about how this is a crucial stretch of the season. that one. That’s a tough one. And I think the big thing is looking at the St. Louis Blues, yes, you can look at the positives of this and we do that quite a bit. Looking at the Blues, they’re still only a couple points out of the wild card spot, but when you’re looking at the goal differential, minus 22 is worse than any team in the Western Conference looking to get into the wild card spot. We can see the Nashville Predators that are talking about trading Steven Samos, Ryan O’Reilly have a better differential now. still minus 21 compared to a 22. But the Blues are struggling on all ends of the ice. They score goals, they blow leads, they lose the leads in shootouts. Two teams like the Flyers, this is a team that after last year, a lot of people, including ourselves, had high expectations for a team that took the present trophy winners to game seven. The Blues feel like they took a step back, which doesn’t make sense. You had some injuries. Robert Thomas went down. Jake Neighbors is still out, though he is practicing. But this is a team that statistically has got worse, but on paper they should be better. And that’s where things are starting to spark. Listen, you’re not getting a lot of production out of some of these guys going into you can look at the top 10 and scoring. Robert Thomas, who missed time, is still sitting one. BCH has been terrible. There’s no other way to put it. But Darius, the biggest thing is now we’re starting to get rumors from David Pegnota via the sheet. And that goes in that St. Louis is apparently willing to listen to trade offers across the board. Now, we know there’s a lot of players, a lot of fans want BCH off this team. We’ve seen the lack of production offensively from him this year. A lot of players took a step back, but it goes straight into the second report from David Pegnota. One of the reasons Brandon Shen didn’t want to leave last year because they were in the thick of things in the playoffs. He didn’t want to abandon his team. Totally different scenario now. And now, what is your thoughts? We’ve seen a blink to the Toronto Maple, the Ottawa Senators. any contending team is going to want Shen, but what is your thoughts on the captain’s name being thrown around a lot more than usual this early in the season? Yeah, and I don’t think Peg Not is saying, you know, necessarily that it’s a totally different situation in terms of that he wants to leave St. Louis. I think he just means that, you know, it’s a different situation in terms of because I’ve seen some of that out there. It’s a different situation now that they’re losing. He might be more open to leaving. And of course, his contract is a little bit different now. Last year, I don’t know, movement clause, all of those things. But to go back for a second, one player that you touched on and I’ve been looking at the comments. We haven’t really talked about him on the channel cuz there’s been some other moves, Pavo Bhnavic makes $8 million and plays on the first line and gets first line minutes. And you know, for the most part, he and I’ve never been this blunt on the channel before. This guy stinks right now. This this guy absolutely stinks. He has to be better. I’ve been looking at the comments and you guys are right. He’s 10th in scoring right now. He does not get paid 10th in scoring million dollars. like he gets paid $8 million and he should be a lot better and using his body to his advantage because he is a bit of a I don’t know what you want to call like a new age power forward in that way. He’s not a traditional power forward, but he can use his body to his advantage and we’ve seen that before in terms of like his play style. So, he’s not doing his thing right now. He’s not playing well and they’re a worse team for it. They need a lot of these guys are top players to be top performing players and that’s kind of why they’re in the situation that they’re in. You know, it adds to it. It contributes to it. It’s not the only reason. Of course, it’s been the defense to start the year. the goalending hasn’t really been that good, but now they’re open to business and I think that makes things very interesting for guys to get back to it like Braden Shen who has a contract that is really attractive if you’re talking about out there in the league a team that would want to acquire him. There’s a lot of interest and a lot of demand right now for top six forwards, not just centers, but obviously a center is more, you know, a lot more teams want centers in that way because they’re harder to find, especially for this cap hit, especially a guy who is a captain and who has won a Stanley Cup in the past as well. And his contract is coming to an end in two years. So, um, he hasn’t had that bad of a season in terms of, you know, you’re never looking to Braden Shen to be like to put up like Robert Thomas numbers and stuff like that. And of course, you want to be responsible on the set the defensive side of the puck and that he is. And of course, he’s moved over to the wing now. They’re playing with a lot of different things. So, that’s been interesting for Shen this year. But, uh, all all of that to say, I don’t know if trading him right now makes sense. Maybe wait till the trade deadline or closer to and see what’s out there. A lot of teams are going to be hungry because it looks like there’s going to be a lot of younger teams in the playoffs this year, at least, you know, looking at it right now. maybe see who’s hungry for a player like that and then you can get a lot more in return and wait it out. Maybe they do because there’s a lot of disappointments in the league right now. Maybe they can make their way up the standings a little bit more, right? Because there’s a lot of teams that were expected to be contenders this year that are not playing very well. So maybe wait it out a little bit. I don’t know if trading him right now makes sense, but I think there’s discussions going on when there wasn’t to start the year. And I think that’s the biggest thing is if they’re looking at all options. Listen, they’ve already made moves. We’ve seen them go out and pick up key pieces. I love the sudarat. He took over that third line position perfectly. D’Vorski stepped up which is awesome to see. They went out to pick up Buches at the Logu trade which is obviously something we’re not going to touch on. This is a team that’s very active and we know Armstrong is going to continue going out to look at all options seeing the reports that he’s very active on the phone. We’ve seen it all off season that he wants to continue making this team better or at least making trades to try to fix things or move on from players at the end of the day. It gets really interesting, Darius, because you’re looking at a team that has a lot of expiring contracts and some of these guys you do have on contracts that are a phase, which is perfect for the team. But going out to make some of these trades, you free up cap space. But we spoke about before if you’re moving on from Shen, you clear up that $6.5 million. You have Krug 6 and a half. You’re looking at 13, but we know St. Louis isn’t the most attractive spot, which sucks to say for free agents. But fans, what is your thoughts on this? Would you be fine with trading out players, looking at a retool, bringing up the young guys through the system? What is your thoughts on the rumors? What is your thoughts on this team? What is the glaring weakness on the Blues that is causing the struggle? Let us know all your thoughts down in the comments. And speaking of comments, let’s go right into comments. Coming from Rob, early part of the season’s the best time to find out what you have in the system. And that is perfectly described on what we’re seeing with D’Vorski right now. We know Logan Mayu didn’t really work out. He’s playing great in the AHL, so maybe we see him jump back up. But also, let us know your favorite prospect. Who has the highest potential and ready to jump in? Is it Otto Stemberg? Someone else? Let us know down in the comments. While you’re down there, leave a like, subscribe, share this with your friend. We’ll be back with another episode to keep up for that. But I’ve been your host Mark with my co-host dear and take care

The St. Louis Blues continue to struggle after dropping two games this weekend and trade talks intensify around the Blues as Doug Armstrong is reportedly open to offers and Brayden Schenn continues to be linked in trades. Mark Pye and Darius Domingues break down all this and more on this episode of Blues Digest.

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Blues Digest is a YouTube channel dedicated to covering all the latest news, trades, reports, and rumors about the St. Louis Blues. We provide in-depth coverage of game highlights, player performances, and analysis of team strategies. Our channel features discussions on key players like Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich, and Jordan Binnington, along with insights from Head Coach Jim Montgomery and General Manager Doug Armstrong. Stay tuned for all the exciting updates and engaging content on everything Blues!

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