For being one of the brightest young defensemen in the NHL, there was an unusually high amount of trade chatter involving the Blues’ Colton Parayko this offseason.



Clubs may have inquired, but general manager Doug Armstrong had no intentions of trading Parayko, sources have told The Athletic.



An NHL team executive was asked, on the condition of anonymity, if he’d even heard Parayko’s name pop up in any management-level conversations and he replied: “Nope, no, no.”



So why all the speculation this summer about moving a 25-year-old, 6-foot-6, 230-pound gliding gazelle whose shot has punctured plexiglass more than once in his three-year career?



Well, part of the reason is because the Blues needed help at forward, and teams such as Toronto or Edmonton, who could provide that, could desperately use a puck-moving blueliner like Parayko. But Armstrong was able to boost the Blues’ anemic offense by adding Buffalo’s...