If Robert Thomas Was Available For Trade Before, He Shouldn't Have Been, Nor Should Be Moving Forward

The same goes for defenseman Colton Parayko, who was reportedly signing off on his no-trade clause away from being dealt to the Buffalo Sabres, only for him to nix it.

“They’re both excellent NHL hockey players. They’re foundational players,” Armstrong said. “They’ve been foundational players for this franchise for a long time. It’s something that I’m going to sit with Alex and we have to talk to ownership about the one- and three-year plan and where does everybody fit in on that. But they’re great players. We just have to cement the direction where we’re going to go.”

For Thomas, there’s no question that the belief is he wasn’t going anywhere before, and shouldn’t be going nowhere now. There’s four years remaining on a contract that pays an average annual value of $8.125 million, and judging by the way Thomas, Dylan Holloway and Jimmy Snuggerud played down the stretch, the Blues have found their No. 1 line for many years to come, if – and that’s a big if – they can produce at a reasonable pace. The pace and production they played at in the final quarter of the season was off the charts good.

“I think we’ve had some good success in the last 20-30 games,” Thomas said. “I think just continuing to build on that, like you said, getting together. I found us just being able to communicate and skate together, and do different things like that has really transpired into during-season success. That’s definitely something we’re going to look to do and plan and kind of see how that goes. Obviously there’s a good stretch of games that you can really build on to hopefully be a long-term thing.”

To his own fault to a degree, Thomas tried playing through a leg injury early in the season that obviously affected his play and limited him to 33 points in 44 games, and likely kept him out of consideration for Team Canada at the Winter Olympics, far off the point-plus per game clip he was coming off last season. But once he got the procedure done, it was not even a question of what kind of player he was and could be after it. It was a reminder of the player that had a point (45 points; nine goals, 36 assists) in 30 of the final 33 games last season and should give the 26-year-old a leg up on summer training with a clean bill of health.

“I feel like health was a huge factor,” Thomas said. “I don’t have to get into too much of it, but it was really nice to feel healthy, feel like myself again. I think that was a big thing of just getting back to the level that I’ve been playing at the last couple of years.

“… I don’t think it’s going to change too much my summer training. Being able to have a full summer healthy, train, keep on playing some more hockey going to Worlds and stuff. I’m really excited for this summer. I don’t think the injury really changed much.”

So what would those discussions be like for the GM, and what would he need to hear from the players, when and if they occur?

“I don’t really need to know a lot from them. Alex is the manager,” Armstrong said. “There’s a heirarchy.

“Now, what the reality of not just the St. Louis Blues is, they have no-trades. It’s a 50-50 relationship. It’s not 100-0 or 0-100, meaning they can say, ‘I don’t like the direction of the team. Trade me,’ and we’ll say, ‘No, we’re not going to trade you. We’re not getting what we like. So your job is to come and work.’ Or we could say, ‘We’re going to trade you,’ and they could say, ‘How about no, I’m going to stay.’ It’s a 50-50 relationship right now. We’d love to work together with them, we’d love that they can achieve their goals and we can achieve our goals whether it’s together or apart, but neither side owns the ultimate hammer in that. I don’t want to just say this is a Parayko-Thomas thing, this is anybody that’s got a no-trade clause in the league, has the same relationship with their manager and it is 50-50.”

There’s no denying the presence and affect Thomas had on two young Blues skill guys in Holloway and Snuggerud, something that will be heavily weighed by management this summer.

Robert Thomas (middle) has had quite the affect and helped form a true No. 1 line for the St. Louis Blues with Dylan Holloway (81) and Jimmy Snuggerud (21). (Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images)

“A ton. A ton, yeah,” Armstrong said.

But the GM did throw some caution to the wind.

“He played like this at the second half like that last year. I think our goal is to play like that … and he’s a helluva player,” Armstrong said. “I’m not bashing Robert Thomas. He’s a helluva player. When he puts that first and second half combined like the second half, first- or second-team All-Star at the end of the year. That’s the type of talent that he has. You look what that line did, so it’s not something that we didn’t see last year this year. He had injuries this year that he fought through, that he played through that he’s rectified. He was like our whole team at the start of the year. I don’t know why. I don’t know why we were like that. I have my feelings why we were like that. We’ve talked about them before, but again, I think he’s going to come back ready to go and I view Robert Thomas as an elite player in this game. I’ve talked to him about, like I think he’s an All-Star already, I think he’s going to represent Canada or his play is good enough to represent Canada. We have World Cups coming up, we have Olympics coming up, but his day job is here and I think he’s a No. 1 center in the NHL and there’s not 32 No. 1 centers in the NHL, I guarantee you that. But I think he is a No. 1 center.”

Simply put, despite everything said above, Thomas shouldn’t go anywhere, and that’s the bottom line. If the Blues feel like they have their true No. 1 center – and they do – what needs to be said? Nothing, other than they will build around this player and hope that the branches sprouted off the foundational player fit the pieces for organizational strength.

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