The St. Louis Blues and Washington Capitals are in for a busy summer

With the St. Louis Blues and Washington Capitals both having their playoff streaks come to an end, Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna discuss which of the two teams will have a better turnaround next year: 

Frank Seravalli: Let’s talk about two teams who had their playoffs streak officially ended; the Washington Capitals have officially been eliminated from playoff contention, no real shock, same with the St. Louis Blues, who have made it in nine of the last 10 years. It’s been an incredible run of success for Alex Ovechkin and the Caps, and the same with the Blues as both teams captured the Stanley Cup in 2018 and 2019. But they’re kind of tied at the hip now with both teams having against players, both selling for at the deadline in significant ways. Which team is most likely to bounce back to the playoffs next season, the Caps or the Blues?

Mike McKenna: I think it’s St. Louis. Even since the trade deadline when they brought in Jakub Vrana and Sammy Blais, they’re 9-6-2. You can’t really take the end of this season and project it into next year. But I think with the Blues, what you can do is the structure of their salaries and contracts for next year is kind of set. I think they still need to go grab a Center and get a top forward; of course, with Ryan O’Reilly leaving, that made a hole. But Pavel Buchnevich does play center, and maybe they think he can fill that role. They’re going to have to rework the D core for the Blues as they got Faulk, Krug, Parayko, Leddy, Bortuzzo and Scandella, that’s your top-six, and I think that has to change if your Doug Armstrong. They also got Joel Hofer coming into the net and, for all we know, might play better than Jordan Binnington. So I think the Blues have a better chance at bouncing back compared to Washington, and for me, it’s an aging team who needs a lot of work done to that lineup. They need forwards; they have about five and a half defensemen; I just think the Blues are closer. 

Frank Seravalli: I’ll agree, but the one thing I’ll say about Washington is they have that cap flexibility. Like they have gone ahead and re-upped these guys, they signed Nick Jensen to an extension they signed Trevor van Riemsdyk to an extension as well. They traded for Rasmus Sandin using one of those picks they got. They are kind of right back to square one when it comes to draft pick capital, and that’s kind of why I lean toward St. Louis.

I’ve talked about this a number of times this season; just look at Doug Armstrong’s playbook, everything he’s sold off prices, whether it be Kevin Shattenkirk or Paul Stastny, he’s then used those picks he’s acquired to go out that next summer and got Ryan O’Reilly and got Brayden Schenn, those were huge pieces for the Blues. Now they’re sitting here and armed with two additional first-round picks in what is already a special draft. Look for them to use that capital to get better in the short term. I think they’re looking at it like It’s not all that different than Vancouver and other markets; with Kyrou and Thomas, the defense we have, we probably won’t bottom out in a crazy way where we need to rebuild but need to re-tool. They have that foundational core to be able to do that. 

Mike McKenna: Yeah, Kyrou and Thomas are pretty exciting. The one thing Washington does have is about $7.5 million in cap space they can play around with, and they have some tradable assets they could move for some return. I’m interested to see what they do on the back end as Orlov leaving was big, and I think they’re going to have to try and get Conor Sheary back, but man, he’s going to be worth way more than $1.5 million next season.

You can watch the full episode here…