Get your questions ready and join in at 1 p.m. Wednesday for our weekly Blues chat.

Matthew DeFranks: Hello! Good afternoon. Sorry for the late start. It was an ill-timed and lengthy update for my laptop that took longer than expected. But I’m here now, so let’s get to some questions.

Tylerg: Matty D, you are enjoying the off season with friends and family. 2 questions A lot of Faksa, Sunqvist talk, but I sort of see a Trent Frederic acquisition this summer. A tad more expensive, but a few years younger than Faksa and Sunqvist, a decent center, hometown guy, plays a grinding style but can score. Idk it just seems like a fit, what are your thoughts?

Matthew DeFranks: I am enjoying the offseason so far, and spending it as a new father, which is also why I wasn’t around that much during the Winnipeg series.

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As for depth forwards, I can see the fit with Trent Frederic, particularly with the hometown angle and the Jim Montgomery angle as well from their time in Boston. This season’s production likely lessens Frederic’s price tag, which is helpful, but I guess we’ll see how the rest of his postseason goes with Edmonton.

Tylerg: Question 2. Are you coming back next season? I like your articles/takes, they are objective. Curious if we get more Matty D content and info. Thanks man!

Matthew DeFranks: Yep, I will be around this summer, next season and everything. Just with the timing of the birth of my child, I’ve been a little scarce.

DenMizzou: Hello, Mr. DeFranks. Thank you for the chat. I don’t think defensemen Faulk and Leddy played very well this past season, though Montgomery seems to like that pairing. Should the Blues try to move on from both Faulk and Leddy this off-season, or would that leave them too exposed on the blue line? Any chance of upgrading from either of those two? Thank you.

Matthew DeFranks: Faulk and Leddy didn’t really play together in the playoffs. It was almost exclusively Faulk with Broberg and then Leddy with Suter or Tucker. But regardless of that, there should be room to move on from them if the Blues want to pursue that aggressively.

Both Faulk and Leddy’s full no-trade clauses will drop to partial ones. Faulk is a 15-team no-trade list, and Leddy is a 16-team no-trade list, according to PuckPedia. So that will provide more flexibility for Armstrong to navigate trade protection.

If we look at the Blues defense next season, there’s Parayko, Fowler, Broberg, Faulk, Leddy, Tucker and Kessel. They would need a lot of bodies on the blue line if they get rid of both Faulk and Leddy. Even if we think back to the start of this season, they had Perunovich, P.O Joseph and Suter. The Blues like depth on defense, and I expect Armstrong to keep doing that.

Dr. Girlfriend: Does DA take a shot at either K’Andre Miller or JJ Peterka as RFAs? Based upon draft capital they have enough on hand for the $7 million dollar range (1st and 3rd in the 2026 draft). I think Buffalo would match, but I wonder if New York would.

Matthew DeFranks: I think I’ve learned not to rule anything out with Doug Armstrong, particularly after his last calendar year of moves. But I don’t know if we’ll see more offer sheets out of him. It took him until his second to last summer as GM to orchestrate two of them, and he’s repeatedly said how many different factors went into them: Oilers cap space, players they liked, Blues cap space, Blues draft capital, timing in the summer, Oilers FA additions, caliber of player.

I will say that I don’t watch a lot of Rangers games, particularly this season. So I’m not entirely up on the state of Miller’s game and what he would provide to the Blues. Even so, the Blues would need to move some money out to make that sort of thing happen.

Tommy Pham: I will word it like this – In your opinion who do you think was the most overall improved player for the blues and who do you think has the most opportunity to improve? Thanks!

Matthew DeFranks: I think Dylan Holloway is the easy answer for the most improved player. He might be one of the most improved players across the entire NHL, to be honest.

As far as room for improvement, I take it to mean the player that has some upside to their game. Part of me wonders about Alexandre Texier with the flashes he showed at times, but he disappeared a lot too, and will be 26 in the fall, so he might be what he is.

So I’ll go with Zack Bolduc. At times, electric. At times, maddening with some of his decision-making. There seems to be something there, especially under Jim Montgomery. They’ll need more consistency from him.

Joe 99: How do you think Edmonton, and the other GM’s in the NHL for that matter, feel about the Blues’ “heist” of Broberg and Holloway? Did the Blues pay Edmonton back enough to unruffle the feathers? Or are they seen as rogues like the Blues of old when they signed Brendan Shanahan long ago (and were punished severely by losing Scott Stevens, arguably a much better player than Shanahan, by an unabashed very partial arbitrator)?

Matthew DeFranks: I think that Edmonton feels better about the summer with how their postseason has gone so far. And getting a series-winning goal from Kasperi Kapanen!

But I don’t think anyone can look at how Holloway and Broberg played this season and blame the Blues for what they did. Those contracts were overpays for what those players were, and then they overperformed them and turned them into bargains.

I do think that the sweeteners that the Blues sent to Edmonton (Paul Fischer and a 2028 third) helped because that was the additional price that the Oilers wanted to not match the offer sheets.

Dr. Girlfriend: Does Toronto hunt around the Blues this Summer to get Berube some players he’s comfortable with? You could tell in that Florida series that Toronto has very few players that really fit Chiefs style. I could see Walker or Torpo as guys that Chief would want, besides Schenn.

Matthew DeFranks: Walker and Toropchenko feel like pieces worth more on the Blues roster than the sixth-round pick or whatever that would come the other way.

But I do wonder if the Leafs come back to the Schenn discussion in the summer after the reported interest at the trade deadline. This summer, Schenn’s full NTC drops to a partial one, and it’s possible that was a real roadblock to a potential deal in the spring.

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