John Tavares: Three Trade Destinations If Worst Happens

St Louis Blues

Why: Tavares + Tarasenko = Lethal
Why not: Western Conference
What we would want: Jaden Schwartz, Robby Fabbri, Nail Yakupov, 2nd Round 2018
Verdict: Doubtful

Who doesn’t want to play with Vladimir Tarasenko? Since showing up in St Louis, the young Russian has scored 134 goals with two 70+ point seasons.

Now add a superstar center beside him? Sure, Paul Stastny is great. But he’s not John Tavares. Not even close. The two would be absolutely dynamic on the same line.

They only have $6 million in cap space next season, but with a package of Schwartz, Fabbri, and Yakupov the Blues clear up another $8.744 million.

Schwartz would be the perfect “vet” winger for the Isles new number one center in Matthew Barzal. He’s only 24 but scores at a .738 pace in his last four seasons.

Fabbri is a great prospect himself and could take over that second line, or he could be tossed around the lineup like the rest of the Islander prospects have done recently.

Yakupov is just a player that has that, “what if” quality to him. He was a first overall selection for a reason. What if the Islanders were the team to get the best out of him? But the Isles won’t tell the Blues that, they’ll make it seem like it’s a favor and demand a 2nd round to insulate themselves from the inherent risk that is Yakupov.

But will Tavares want to go to central USA? He’ll certainly get the similar anonymity that he gets on Long Island.

Next: Garth Snow Is Smarter Than You

This is all assuming one thing, that Tavares doesn’t want to stay. I’m still confident he will, because I like to beleive that what he says is indeed true. We’ll have to wait and see on July 1st 2017.