Tkachuk & A Goalie Trade

Keith Tkachuk, according to Andy Strickland, began negotiations on a new contract. This follows suit with the comments made by Blues President John Davidson earlier in the day. In that same interview, JD also mentioned that a goalie may be obtained via FA or trade, opening up potential trading partners similar to the situation that occurred last offseason with Chris Mason. Whether or not that means that they are going that route again or not i don't know, and personally suspect not.

The bigger question is what would it do to the lines.

Boyes - Mcdonald - Kariya
Perron - Berglund - Oshie

Those were my assumed top lines from before, with the obvious thought that AM switches them up during the game fairly often.

3rd line seems like it'd be similar to Crombeen/Backes - McClement - Steen
4th line would be Winchester/FA/King, Walt, Backes/Cam/King.

That's a mess obviously, but the point is Backes would get progressively more ice time as the game went on, taking the place of a goon.

PK1 would be Backes Oshie, PK2 would be McClement Crombeen with steen in the wings if one of the 4 should be in the box.

Walt figures into one of the power play lines with a forward likely manning at least one point.

Complicated enough yet? It gets better.

The blues might not even be done shopping for a forward if Walt resigns. Crombeen is not a given until he's signed, and we could very well go after another veteran forward to replace Crombeen's slot rather than resigning Winchester. I'd like to see a grinder with hands, but I think Winchester would probably be the best and most affordable option out there.

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The plan this last season was to have Legace as the 1A and Mason 1B. A trip on the carpet and head games later, Mason is the starter and Bishop was a bystander for the majority of the season. Doesn't sound like the blues want Bishop to do that again, so the options are now out there with Free Agency right around the corner. There are many changes in coaching/front office these days, and we could very well see goalies on the way out from those teams. It'll take a while to sort that out.