The question posed to GM Dave Semyck of the St. Louis Blues is, “What will this trade deadline bring to St. Louis?”
While there is no easy answer to this question for the Blues, what I can say is the plan is to “Keep to the plan”. When I took over in St. Louis a little more than two seasons ago, the plan was to tear that team down and build from scratch, with the ultimate goal of building a team and a franchise that will compete for a title year in and year out. The tear down portion of the plan is always easier than the build back up portion. We believe that, while this season hasn’t gone as well as we had hoped, we are still on schedule to have a contending team in the seasons to come. I fully believe you build championship caliber teams with goaltending and defense, and that is what we have done with this Blues team. The defense is very young, but very talented. Goaltending has been a little shaky this season, but it is a process and one that takes time. We firmly believe that Alex is our future in net, which is why we gave him a 10-year deal. We wanted him to know that we see him as the long-term answer for this team from a goaltending perspective.
We invested heavily in the defense and goaltending positions this offseason with both contracts and workouts, we plan to do the same this offseason.
We do not believe there is a “quick fix” answer for this team, and while we don’t expect to move any major pieces during this next run to the trade deadline, I wouldn’t say that the Blues will not be active. We will evaluate any trade, and make moves that help the Blues lng term goal of sustained success.
8/4/2021 - 313 words
