On the Kevin Shattenkirk …
Jeremy Rutherford: St. Louis Blues defenseman Shattenkirk has heard the backlash from people for turning down contract offers from teams that want to trade for him, and nixing the possible trade.
Jeremy Rutherford: Shattenkirk: “I don’t hold it against them. I can totally understand, that’s why our fans are so great, because they believe in this team.”
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Darren Dreger on TSN 1050 talking about Kevin Shattenkirk and if he’s a $7 million defenseman. Some GMs don’t think he is, and a number of them see him as a second pairing defenseman.
Dreger thinks he will get paid, but it may not come from a contender as most of them have salary cap issues.
“And when you look at the $7 million men, who are we looking at here? We’re looking at Doughty. We’re looking at Pietrangelo. You’re looking at Weber. Go down the list of all of these great guys. I mean, is he better than Erik Karlsson. Is he better than Brent Burns, who extended in San Jose. No, but he’s very good. He’s that power play specialist and a second-pairing defenseman.”
As a rental at the deadline, the Maple Leafs and New York Rangers are finding the asking price to be too high. The Rangers appear to targeting Brendan Smith now.
The Blues are still in the playoff picture, so if they trade Shattenkirk, they need to get something that is okay for this season, and something that helps in the future.
“If they don’t get that, I wonder if Armstrong doesn’t have a tough conversation with his owner to say, ‘Really? I know that it’s not good management to allow a third piece – Backes, Brouwer, and now Shattenkirk – to walk for free, but what about that playoff revenue that we might lose.’”