St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas skates with the puck
It’s well known now around the NHL: The reason that the sure-fire sellers, the St. Louis Blues, haven’t been able to pull the trigger yet on a deal, is due to the high prices they’ve set on their trade candidates. 

And when it comes to center Robert Thomas, the ask is astronomical. 

According to Blues insider Jeremy Rutherford in The Athletic, here’s what it’ll cost a team to pry the point-per-game man away from St. Louis:

Armstrong has made it clear what the asking price is for Thomas: three first-half-of-the-first-round assets. For example, that could mean an established young player, a drafted prospect and a draft pick who were all selected or could be taken in the first 15 or so picks.

A huge ask, indeed. This even surpasses the previous thought of what GM Doug Armstrong was looking for in ureturn for Thomas, which, as Elliotte Friedman noted, was a young talented center just like Thomas, only a bit younger. 

But wait, even if a team is able to meet that massive three-pronged price tag, there’d still be one more big hurdle to overcome: Thomas has a full no-move clause on his eight-year, $65 million deal. He’d have to agree to waive it in order for any trade to go through. 

But as Rutherford points out, if Thomas is able to get a firm picture of the direction the Blues are taking — i.e. is this a quick, aggressive retool, or a multi-year rebuild — he might be willing to waive (particularly if it’s the latter). 

“But between that and another team coming up with the assets Armstrong is asking for, it seems unlikely to be pulled off before the deadline,” writes Rutherford.  

With all of that to overcome, it sounds more and more like any Robert Thomas trade will have to come in the summer.

The 26-year-old is having a bit of a down year (much like the team itself), with 11 goals and 33 points in 42 games. But the previous four seasons saw him record well above a point-per-game pace overall. 

Photo: © Peter Creveling-Imagn Images