Rangers trade Blues Buchnevich for Blais, draft pick

The New York Rangers traded winger Pavel Buchnevich, a waiting RFA, to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for Sammy Blais and the Blues’ 2nd round pick in 2022.

Blais, 25, is in the final year of a two-year contract that paid him an AAV of $ 1.5 million. He will be eligible for arbitration after next season. He was the 176th pick (6th round) in the 2016 draft and just finished a 2020-21 season where he scored 15 points in 36 games. Buchnevich, meanwhile, had 48 points in 54 games last season.

Obviously, the Blues get the best player in this trade. Blais fits the front office’s mission to be a “tougher” team to face – he takes body and has a high engine – but his overall impact is completely eclipsed by Buchnevich’s skills and production. Simply put, one of these players is not like the other.

So what’s going on here? The bottom line is that Blais will be a lot cheaper on the books than Buchnevich will be. But moving Buchnevich to avoid paying him feels a lot like wasting the type of player a team with playoff aspirations shouldn’t be making. It is perhaps the first domino to fall in a series of moves for the Rangers which brings another key element for the top six who could effectively replace Buchnevich. We won’t know until we know it.

What we do know is that Buchnevich had quite a career in New York City. He ends his stay in New York with 195 points in 301 games. Originally a third-round pick (75th overall) in the 2013 Draft, Buchnevich has established himself as an outstanding top-six winger in recent years. It will not be easy to replace.

We’ll have a more in-depth analysis of this deal and all of the other news of the day right here at Blueshirt Banter.