Demelo isn’t signing with a bottom feeder like Anaheim when he’ll be 31 and one of the top right handed defenders on the market. He’ll be looking for a contender and they’ll be enough interested in him that he’ll get a good offer

I truly don’t know how to value LaCombe. I understand the thought process behind it and think it could be beneficial for the Blues. But it would hinge on belief that LaCombe is capable of moving into a top 4 role long term and being an asset there.

It would also have to be at the pick because if one of the top end defenseman are still available that would probably make more sense.

no thanks

CHOO CHOO! ALL ABOARD!

The MBN —> ANA train is leaving that station!!

16 would be an awesome spot to trade up to. Feels like someone solid should fall there. 12 spots are very likely gone (in no particular order), including:

Celebrini
Lev
Lind
Parekh
Buim
Demidov
Eiserman
Iginla
Catton
Dickinson
Yakemchuk
Silayev

That still leaves your entire list above plus some other interesting players with only 3 picks before #16OA. Very real chance there’s a Helenius or Brandsegg-Nygard caliber player available there. Maybe even a Catton if the undersized Caufield effect scares away a few extra teams

You could’ve assumed Killorn or Gudas would’ve wanted the same. Pretty hard to say that with any confidence unless the player has said so themselves.

While ANA won’t be contending for playoffs next year, their young talent pool looks pretty promising for the last 3 years the suggested 5 year deal for him here

DeMelonhas also never had a payday before, but I don't know that he's going to be able to hang as 1RD, he's up there in age and this site has him ranked as 3RD. Gudas has turned out great but I don't think bringing in most teams 3RDs and hoping they are top 4 is a viable strategy.



This puts his value at a 2nd, and he's playing top 4 with us already, usually on his off hand no less.

The difference is that Killorn and Gudas weren’t close to the top of their free agent class. Demelo is arguable a top 3 available player at a position that most teams in the league need.

Mark my words, Demelo isn’t going to a bottom feeder like Anaheim.

*money has entered the chat*

Do you know Dylan DeMelo personally, and has he told you what kind of team he would sign with in free agency? Otherwise, it’s pointless to speculate with what kind of team he wants to sign with. Like OP said, the same thing could have been said about Killorn/Gudas, yet they signed there on multi-year deals…

Players want to win. Money isn’t everything. If Anaheim was 2-3 years closer, I’d say Demelo would be a great fit. But they’re not close. Winning beats money.

That’s reasonably fair to assume. I don’t think your perspective is outrageous in any way, maybe just the confidence you have behind it without anything concrete from the player.

Look where Gaudreau signed when he had his pick of the litter. There’s more that goes into these decisions than just playing for the best available team 100% of the time. It’s not unreasonable that a 31 year old might be interested in choosing a nice place to live with a warm climate to settle down with his family. Especially somewhere with ample cap space to give him a pay day, where he can play the role of a leader for a team expected to be on the rise.

Not saying ANA is happening, or even likely. Just that maybe it’s not as clear cut as you make it out to be 🤷‍♂️

The thread started here has Demelo signing a 5 year deal worth $5.25M per season.. easy to believe he can get likely at least $4M per season if not $4.5M per season from another contender. With the high taxes in California, the money here doesn’t really balance out. A team like Tampa is looking for a top 4 right handed defender and can offer a $4M or $4.5M AAV contract and Demelo walks hole with more money.

At a $4.5M AAV in Tampa, Demelo would walk away with a little under $200K more in cash than he would if he signed a $5.25M AAV contract in Anaheim.

At a $4M AAV in Tampa, Demelo would only be short about $100K less than if he signed a $5.25M AAV contract in Anaheim.

Gonna have to offer more than that to say money is the reason why he signs in Anaheim.

I mean it's not really a value thing that i'm looking for. And to be honest yes he's playing in Anaheim's top 4 in a bad situation. But he also had a relatively bad season stat wise. I'm fine with overlooking it based upon the team not being very good on the backend as a whole and being pretty young. But that's the main reason I don't really know where to value him.

If it was a 2nd instead of a defenseman in that trade, the Blues have no reason to make the trade. But if he's a guy who has a realistic toolkit in a bad situation that could fit in nicely to our group for the forseeable future, sure I would do that. I'm just ignorant on the player's outlook, and frankly it's hard to really just look at a prospect report and believe given how many highly touted guys don't stick and have glowing reviews.

My main point is I could see reasoning for this IF the Blues front office believes he can be a solid piece in the top 4 for the Blues, and IF the top end defenseman in the class are all gone by #16 (assuming no lottery won).

Having watched a lot of his play this season, he's been making good reads, he's been developing his defensive awareness, and he's been making a lot of good plays. A lot of his bad stat block comes from a long stretch having to be Fowlers partner so he was playing against the top competition.

I think he's going to be an incredibly solid 3/4 all around guy going forward, id personally see him kept on the roster and move Zelleweger to the wing, but I don't know that that's reality.

Well that's the other issue at hand here. I'm not sure how much we need a #3/#4 on the left side. There's a really good chance Lindstein is with the NHL team in that role in a couple of years. And until then the gap is Leddy who has been more than fine.

It's an interesting think piece, because we have the need. But the issue is our need is a true #1 defenseman (I'm not expecting that from this sort of a trade) or a prospect that has a decent chance to fill that role. I like college defenseman, they always seem pretty mature in their game. The issue is alot of them don't have the highest ceiling. So for a team that direly needs a guy to fill that role to slide everyone else down into appropriate spots, they'd have to really like the guy which is plausible. We haven't had much of an issue filling out the bottom of the roster, and we really don't have much cap flexibility to fix our needs. It's why a lot of the talk from the Blues fans side is heavily focused towards young defenseman that could potentially fill that role to push forward our timeline, or even more so try and hit a timeline that lets us be competitive while we still have Thomas and Kyrou in their primes.

The question that it leads to is do you have a better chance at finding that by doing something like this, or is there someone that wont be there by the time the edmonton first rolls around.

Los Angeles finished 6th out of 8 in the division in the pandemic-shortened 2020-2021 season, 7 games out of the playoffs. That off-season, Phillip Danault signed with the Kings for 6 seasons at $5.5 million. Sometimes, players go where they'll fit best and expect to succeed.

Not to mention both of the teams mentions were on the up and rising category