GDT #61: Blues @ Sharks | 9:30 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN

[theohall]

Two rebuilding teams with evolving rosters will meet ahead of the NHL trade deadline when the San Jose Sharks host the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.

Both teams could make more trades ahead of Friday's NHL trade deadline. In the meantime, they must play on.

The Sharks have lost six of their last seven after falling to the Montreal Canadiens 3-1 on Tuesday.

"I thought we were too loose," San Jose coach David Quinn said. "Even in the first two periods, we had some chances to go up 2-0 and just couldn't capitalize. We were just too loose at the end of the day. When you give up a 2-on-0 basically to lose the game, that's just not really having a conscience and not reading the situation."

The Sharks traded star forward Timo Meier to the New Jersey Devils as part of their retooling. They acquired Shakir Mukhamadullin, Fabian Zetterlund, Nikita Okhotiuk and Andreas Johnsson in that trade.

"I was just happy coming here, get to know everyone here, and build some new chemistry," Zetterlund said. "I'm really excited.'

Zetterlund and Johnsson impressed their coach in their San Jose debuts.

"I thought they were effective," Quinn said. "I thought they did some good things. It's not easy stepping in, getting off the plane last night, coming to play right away."

The Sharks also added forward Vladislav Namestnikov from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Blues are winless in their last six (0-4-2) since trading captain Ryan O'Reilly and forward Noel Acciari to the Toronto Maple Leafs. They also shipped out forwards Vladimir Tarasenko and Ivan Barbashev along with defenseman Niko Mikkola in other deals while embarking on a wholesale makeover.

St. Louis is 0-for-22 on the power play during its six-game winless streak.

"We have a tendency to look for the pretty plays instead of just being direct and putting it towards the net, and recovering pucks," defenseman Torey Krug said. "That's usually when the pretty plays open up. I've got to do a better job of taking control and being a leader of the unit and try to calm things down, put guys in positions to succeed."

The Blues picked up Kasperi Kapanen on waivers from the Pittsburgh Penguins and gave him a scoring line role.

"I thought that last night, like I told (Kapanen) today, he was in the hard areas," Blues coach Craig Berube said after Wednesday practice. "He was in the middle of the ice. He got some chances and that's what he's got to keep on doing. Obviously, do your job defensively and things like that. We were happy with his game."

The Blues won the previous match-up against the Sharks 5-3 on Nov. 10. Five Blues scored and Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich had two assists each.

St. Louis goalie Jordan Binnington made 27 saves and Kaapo Kahkonen stopped 28 shots for the Sharks.

[theohall]

This is a winnable one, not that I want the Blues to win anything but a better draft position at this point.

[glen a richter]

LGS!

I keep up with a lot of the mock drafts and such, especially at this time of the season and one of the sites has the Blues using one of their 1st rounders on a goalie. Not my first choice and I hope they're only doing their mock based on player rankings but if a goalie is the BAP by the time they get around to their last first rounder I'm not sure I'd like them to go that route. I'm curious how Hofer will respond to a permanent jump to the NHL albeit as a backup and the more I see this team the more I realize it's not Binner's fault they suck.

[theohall]

Binnington is the primary reason the Penguins game even went to OT. Guess he didn't get the memo the team needs more lack of passion and to embrace losing.

As to this draft, it's forward and goalie heavy in terms of talent. Defense is what this draft is missing. Some mocks don't have any D selected until Rd 3. Not that the Blues can do anything without moving current defenseman.

[gaijin]

Binnington is the primary reason the Penguins game even went to OT. Guess he didn't get the memo the team needs more lack of passion and to embrace losing.

As to this draft, it's forward and goalie heavy in terms of talent. Defense is what this draft is missing. Some mocks don't have any D selected until Rd 3. Not that the Blues can do anything without moving current defenseman.

If this draft is low on D, it SHOULDN'T be a problem for the Blues with Faulk, Krug, Parayko, Leddy, Scandella, Bortuzzo. If they package one or more of those guys in a deal (which they should do), I think the younger D will fill in just fine for whomever leaves.

Burns and Thornton may be gone from the Sharks, but they still suck.

[theohall]

The issue with the Blues "packaging" any of their "top 6" defenseman:

Faulk - full NTC through the 24-25 season; 15 team NTC for the next 2 seasons.
Krug - ditto
Parayko - full NTC through the 27-28 season; 15 team NTC for the next 2 seasons.
Leddy - full NTC through the 24-25 season; 16 team NTC for the next season.
Scandella - 7 team NTC through next season
Bortuzzo, Tucker, and Rosen are the only "clean" contracts.

So to move any 5 of the top 6, 4 of them have to give approval and the 5th can limit the Blues options.

Yes, all of that is on Armstrong who "lowered" AAVs a little by offering those NTCs, but it's now hand-cuffed what he can do. IMO, GMs are better off paying the extra million in AAV than offering NTCs.

[theohall]

So of course they win... to end their losing streak.. which isn't winning a better draft pick.