Kevin Shattenkirk traded to Washington Capitals

UPDATE: The Blues have swapped pending UFAs with the Capitals, sending back goaltender Pheonix Copley for forward Brad Malone.

Sparing us all the agony of staring at TradeCentre all day on Wednesday, the Blues have arranged a deal sending Kevin Shattenkirk to the Washington Capitals as a rental piece for the Caps’ playoff push.

The Blues’ playoff push without one of their top power play scorers? That’s a different story.

Here’s the terms of the deal:

That should be Zach Sanford, not Ranford. Sanford was a second round pick of the Capitals in 2013. He’s a center, he’s 22, and he has two goals and an assist in 26 games played this season.

The Blues got a pure rental price on Shattenkirk, which is to be expected since he appeared intent to only do a sign-and-trade with select teams. This put the Blues in a tough position on not getting much of a return on their star defenseman; the return is better than nothing, since Shatty is slated to be a UFA come July 1st.

This is the kicker, however:

The Blues held onto half of his salary for the rest of the season to ensure that they got a decent return on Shattenkirk. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be getting “help now” pieces in return, leaving a team that has had problems scoring this season to find some way to replace 42 points.

Best of luck in the future to Kevin Shattenkirk. His return wasn’t exactly Taylor Hall (you tried, Army), but it’s better than letting him walk.

The Blues created an untenable cap situation, and this is the consequence.