51ºÚÁÏ

The trade deadline has been quiet the past two springs in 51ºÚÁÏ.

In 2024, there was chatter about the Blues moving Pavel Buchnevich for a high price, but nothing materialized. In 2025, rumors swirled around captain Brayden Schenn, but his no-trade protection perhaps factored into no deals coming together for the Blues. Now, looking ahead to next spring and the trade deadline on March 6, things could look differently for 51ºÚÁÏ.

They could be in a position to add at the deadline.

The Blues enter the season looking at the possibility of having plenty of cap space to work with during the year. As it stands right now, with a projected roster of 14 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders, plus Torey Krug on injured reserve, the Blues are under the $95.5 million salary cap. They can create more space during the year by placing Krug on long-term injured reserve, allowing the Blues to exceed the salary cap.

The new collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the NHLPA is set to begin next season, but elements of it will go into effect this year. One of those is changing the way that teams use LTIR.

In the past, teams could place a player on LTIR and receive close to their entire cap hit in relief. Now, teams can only receive the amount of the average salary of the previous year. The average salary last year was $3,817,283, so that’s the amount teams can use in 2025-26.

The exception is if the player going on LTIR will not play the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs. For Krug, that appears to be the case after surgery on his ankle in the 2024 offseason. He missed all of the 2024-25 season, and Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said he does not expect Krug to play again.

With Krug not expected to play at all, the Blues would be able to use close to his $6.5 million cap hit (depending on how tight the team is to the cap) in order to navigate injuries throughout the season or to add players via trade. It would just have to be formalized that Krug is unable to play.

Last year, the Blues had to place Krug on LTIR early in the season to navigate early obstacles brought on by Oskar Sundqvist’s recovery from knee surgery and Brandon Saad’s paternity leave. The extra cap space also allowed them to acquire Cam Fowler at a $4 million cap hit from the Ducks in mid-December.

With the LTIR rules changed league-wide, the Blues could be one of the few teams to benefit from being able to use it to its fullest extent.

Now, what does that look like for Armstrong?

Throughout their retool, the Blues have placed importance on acquiring players who fit the right age group. That’s why Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg made sense, or even a flier on Alexandre Texier. That’s why a hockey trade with Montreal brought in Logan Mailloux and shipped out Zack Bolduc. The Blues have targeted players in their early to mid-20s to help strengthen the next wave of NHL talent.

The Blues haven’t acquired a rental player at the trade deadline since Nick Leddy in March 2022, back when Armstrong was trying to fortify a 109-point team. Radek Faksa has been the only recent acquisition with only one year remaining on his contract. Fowler, Mathieu Joseph, Texier, Kevin Hayes, Jakub Vrana and Kasperi Kapanen all had multiple years left when the Blues acquired them.

So if those filters hold — and add in that a player is coming from a non-contending, selling team — the target gets smaller to hit. Of course, the Blues could also show to Armstrong with a strong start to the season that this team deserves reinforcements, regardless of how it fits into the long-term plan of the organization.