James Mirtle<\/a> of The Athletic, we should not count out the Carolina Hurricanes making Thomas their next ‘big swing.’Something tells me that Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky is going to keep swinging on the biggest fish until one is reeled in for the long term.\u00a0<\/p>\nThomas would be (a great) fit as a center, given he\u2019d allow Logan Stankoven to shift to the wing and give Carolina two higher-end scoring lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His exceptional vision and two-way ability would fit in well under coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour.Why landing Thomas would be a much better catch for Hurricanes than previous ‘big swings’<\/p>\n
The Canes, of course, have cast out many lines looking for that big catch, as Mirtle alluded to. They’ve reeled in the likes of Jake Guentzel and Mikko Rantanen the last two seasons, but both have wriggled off the hook.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If they can somehow get Thomas into the boat, they wouldn’t have to worry about any impending free agency or extensions, as they did with Guentzel & Rantanen. Thomas has still got five years remaining on his eight-year contract with an $8.125 million AAV. Additionally, cap space is definitely not an issue for Carolina\u2014they have oodles of it. Over $26 million right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there is the little matter of a No Trade Clause that would have to be waived, first. How Thomas would feel about a move to Carolina is unknown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Blues’ pivot is having a bit of a down year offensively, with 11 goals and 33 points in 42 games. But that could be partially attributed to the team’s struggles overall this season. He has certainly shown his star power the previous few seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Canes have a selection of\u00a0four first-round picks over the next three years to make up part of the deal, but it’s believed the Blues are also seeking a proven star in return.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo: \u00a9 Jeff Curry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 If 26-year-old Robert Thomas is to be had at the upcoming trade deadline, it will take a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[77325,385,61536,21071,22358,77324,57292,77323,77322,22151,77321,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-465627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey-news","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-nhl-draft","11":"tag-nhl-free-agency","12":"tag-nhl-news","13":"tag-nhl-playoffs","14":"tag-nhl-rumors","15":"tag-nhl-teams","16":"tag-nhl-trade-deadline","17":"tag-nhl-trade-rumors","18":"tag-nhl-trades","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"St.](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEg5wDo12DuZHy9qk5DifF7_klahLhSCzqzuoRSZkgqeVmTDg1imBq6A3N6nnqEONeORmFphAOHc4Kh6HL9f_WuWL8yEedYP4nTq0JpTd5TXJKECSXZZkmFyNr6-vy5E1iiE0GSYv8EvE8v7CqFTRjz8FgJfSZoWwapx0NH_m_Qy74ks2-Tn1H9iSJNNcrSg\/s4949\/USATSI_27926044.jpg\" "\\"St.")
<\/a>If 26-year-old Robert Thomas is to be had at the upcoming trade deadline, it will take a very high price to do it. One recent report from Elliotte Friedman<\/a>\u00a0indicated that a team will have to make the St. Louis Blues say to themselves, ‘there\u2019s no way we can say no’.<\/p>\n