Canadiens Urged To Target 2 Blues' Big-Name Trade Candidates

The St. Louis Blues are selling. And as they say in the bankrupcy sales: Everything must go. Well, pretty much. Unfortunately, shoppers (i.e. NHL teams) are finding the price tags far too high in St. Louis to do any buying just yet.

But the Montreal Canadiens are being urged to go after two of the Blues' big-name trade candidates.

Nicolas Cloutier of TVA Sports says the Habs should forget about their long-stated target of a second-line center, and instead go for an elite scoring winger with a Canadiens tie, and a big defenseman that's on sale. And he has the evidence to back it up.

Cloutier input some data into Sportlogiq, "to identify the Canadiens' most pressing need at the trade deadline," and it came back with the analysis that they "can improve defensively," and "a forward who could increase their shot volume."

What the Canadiens need to get to get past the first round of the playoffs isn't a second-line center anymore. It's Jordan Kyrou, Nick Suzuki's best buddy.

In addition, fellow TVA Sports analyst Maxim Lapierre suggested Colton Parayko as a target.

Kyrou is back in focus as Canadiens urged to trade for the shooting-efficient forward

A right winger for the first line, to set up next to Suzuki and Cole Caufield would be ideal, and Kyrou could be the answer. He has five years remaining on an $8.125M cap hit. He had three consecutive 30-goal seasons coming into this one. He's having a down year for the down-in-the-dumps Blues, but the 27-year-old has surely proven his legit upside on offense over the past few seasons.

As for Kyrou, the buzz on the Habs' interest in acquiring the winger goes back to last summer, when the strong connection between Suzuki and Kyrou was detailed.

And Sportlogiq notes that Kyrou "performs very well in the categories where, precisely, the (Canadiens are) weak: shots attempted (92nd percentile), shots on goal (91st percentile), shots attempted from the slot (90th percentile), shots on goal from the slot (84th percentile)..."

Parayko could be another Habs' target from the Blues

On Parayko, if a right-side top-four D is what Montreal needs, the St. Louis veteran would be a nice target. The 6'6" defender is also not having his best season, but that could also be attributed, at least in part, to the overall disappointing performance of the whole roster.

Again, however, the price tags are extremely high at the moment, so unless the Blues put a 'Sale' sticker on any of their assets, acquiring one—much less two—of them, will be difficult.