What do you think? Should the Blues be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?

I’m going to really go out on a limb here and say that the Blues’ season has officially gone off of the rails. Last night’s 6-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights may have finally done it.

Or maybe that backbreaking loss in Colorado did it. Or the blown lead loss to the Ducks. Or... you know what? You get it. This isn’t where any of us wanted to be. This isn’t where the Blues expected to be.

On paper, they’re a solid team, but injuries have derailed much of the team’s momentum, and returning players somehow further derailed any momentum the banged up guys figured out. They haven’t looked like a cohesive unit since the playoff bubble. Most assumed that the off-season additions of Torey Krug and Mike Hoffman would help at least a little bit, but now we’re looking at the possibility of Hoffman being sold off to be a power play plug for another team.

I’ve been asked if I think that the Blues should be buyers or sellers at the deadline, and to be honest, I drift toward sellers at this point. But as a caveat, I have tried to avoid giving a firm answer to any trade deadline question after I predicted, on Puck Daddy no less, that there was no way that Doug Armstrong would trade for Ryan Miller. Hoo boy, was I off.

Basically, take any prediction that I make with a huge grain of salt, even this year. Eyes are on the Blues’ three pending UFAs: Hoffman, Tyler Bozak, and Jaden Schwartz, all of whom could be valuable assets to ship out.

The players fans would like to see offloaded, like the gentleman in the title photo for this piece, are spare parts at best, so don’t hold your best.

Selling at the deadline is never something fans enjoy. You lose fan favorites, and it’s akin to waiving the white flag for the rest of the season. Worst case scenario and too many guys get shipped out, it means that a rebuild’s underway.

So I’m tossing this over to you guys: do the Blues have some surprise gas in the tank or is it time for them to start focusing on next year, when the season looks more back to normal?