New Jersey Devils: 5 Teams To Target With A Flat Salary Cap

St. Louis Blues

The St. Louis Blues might be the contending team that’s hurt the most by the flat salary cap. Next season, they only have $2 million in salary cap space despite one of their best players in Alex Pietrangelo becoming a free agent. They would like to re-sign their top defenseman, but if they don’t make some drastic changes it just isn’t happening.

There are some very expensive pieces that we just don’t see going anywhere. Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko are on matching $7.5 million salaries. Four other forwards are making more than $5 million per season. There’s just a lot of money spent on the forward group, and that’s led to a situation that makes it near impossible to maneuver. That is, unless they unload some of that salary.

The Blues have a lot of pieces on decent contracts that the Devils would target. Number one on their list would be defenseman Colton Parayko. He’s probably close to off limits, but not exactly there. He’s very important to the Blues, but if trading him leads to the Blues keeping Pietrangelo, they might pull the trigger.

Other players they could move include those on the wrong side of 30 in Alexander Steen and Tyler Bozak. They both contribute at their age, with Bozak providing a lot that other centers don’t, but they don’t seem to fit the timeline of the Devils. Plus, they both have at least modified no-trade clauses, so that doesn’t seem likely.

There are other options, so the Blues seem like one of the most likely trade candidates just because of the sheer volume of possibilities.