By Brad Lee
The Blues sent a fourth round pick in this weekend's NHL draft to the Kansas City Nashville Predators for goaltender Chris Mason. Here's what the busy John Davidson said about the trade:
Acquiring Chris really solidifies our goaltending position which was one of our goals going into this weekend. We are looking forward to a big day today at the draft.
Mason posted a 2.90 goals-against last year in 51 games but his save percentage was a pedestrian 89.8 percent.Mason has been a Blues killer in recent seasons. Over the last three years, Mason had a record of 12-3-1 with two shutouts against St. Louis. Yikes. Hopefully he won't shatter his teammates' confidence in practice.
This makes sense for Nashville. They had a logjam at goaltender with Mason, Dan Ellis and prospect Pekke Rinne in the AHL. Someone had to go and Mason and his $3 million salary for next season were it.
So what does this trade mean? Well those crazy-ass rumors about the Blues trading for Ottawa's headache, Ray Emery, have gone down in flames. It also means Emmanuel Legace better show up in camp with a healthy knee and ready to compete for playing time. We've been as big of backers as Legace as anyone, but Mason isn't Hannu "Ears" Toivonen. He'll arrive this summer ready to push Legace for playing time. At age 32, some would say Mason is in the middle of his prime playing years. It's interesting that Mason like Legace was considered a career backup goaltender and didn't get a chance to start until near the age of 30.
After this deal, the Blues are left with the 4th overall selection tonight, as well two second-round picks, three third-round picks, and one selection in each of the 4th, 5th, and 6th rounds of the weekend's draft.
So Blues fans, do you like the Chris Mason or do you not like the Chris Mason? Let us hear it in the comments.
And if we would have known today would be so much fun with all these moves, we would have taken the day off. This has already been more exciting than trade deadline day for the Blues.