For Sale Sign Puts Cloud Over Every Blues Decision

When the Blues decided Monday to not offer Matt D'Agostini a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent, it made him an unrestricted free agent effective Friday. That has to be related to the team being for sale, right?

The Blues didn't have a first round pick in the NHL Draft Friday night, but they had five picks in the second and third rounds. They made a minor, nearly insignficant trade with a pick and just drafted players with the others. They didn't trade for an impact player because current ownership has run out of money to add payroll, right?

Owner Dave Checketts has been hired as a consultant for the Detroit Pistons in the NBA. He's going to need something to fill his time soon because a sale of the Blues is iminent, right?

Doug Armstrong had a bologna sandwich for lunch on Monday, reportedly. If the team had a buyer, he would have had turkey, right? RIGHT?

Everything related to the St. Louis Blues at the moment is tainted by the fact the team is for sale. Every decision, every strategic move, every statement, every pass on an opportunity to acquire a player is seen through that prism. It's like watching How I Met Your Mother and the character of Barney Stinson, played by Neil Patrick Harris. On the show, he's a philandering womanizer who has slept with hundreds of women and is obsessed (spoiler alert: until this past season's finale) with bedding his next woman. In real life, he's tweeting about how he might get married to his male partner who is helping him to raise twin boys they adopted. It's really difficult to forget the real life situation and enjoy the fantasy.

When free agency starts on Friday, I look and see that the Blues are several million dollars below the salary cap floor. Which means they nearly $20 million from the league salary cap. I can fanatasize that the Blues will be a player in the Brad Richards sweepstakes or that a big money guy on a team looking to create some space might come here for a pick or bag of practice pucks. And then I remember, "Oh yeah, the Blues don't have cash flow or an owner who expects to be here in a year or any chance of competing for a Stanley Cup under these circumstances." And then I drink.

Any moves the Blues make between now and the sale of the team is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Because of the limitations, any move will have little effect on the overall direction or future of this team. So don't be dissappointed on Friday when the Blues sign a couple guys for Peoria. Think about D'Agostini. He's a useful player who can be plugged in a couple different roles. But because he could have gone to arbitration, they couldn't afford that chance. Sucks.

Agree? Disagree? Vent in the comments.