St. Louis needed a shakeup and entering this summer, there was no way to guess how it would come.

There was talk they might fire Ken Hitchcock, whose defensive style hasn't held up under the bright lights of the playoffs. There was talk they might actually go out and get playoff-quality goaltending, which has been a big reason for Hitchcock's teams failing once the postseason rolls around. There was talk, too, that the team might try to shake up its underwhelming veteran forwards corps.

The last of these is, obviously, exactly what happened (though it must be said that Blues fans should be worried that it took Doug Armstrong this long to realize the core forwards were a problem). And so the obvious question is whether the team is better now than it was a month ago. And boy that's an interesting one.

There are guys St. Louis has signed this summer who will help (Andre Benoit, maybe Peter Harrold), and others who probably will not (Kyle Brodziak, Jordan Caron), but the big move for St. Louis this summer is obviously swapping beloved-but-overrated TJ Oshie for Troy Brouwer.

To what end this trade was made is uncertain, because say what you want about Oshie — and the St. Louis media has been more than happy to do so since his departure — but he wasn't what you'd call the problem for this team. Perception? Yeah, that was a problem, because everyone thought he was better than he is (a high-end second-line guy), and frankly you'd rather have him at $4.175 million for the next two years than Brouwer's contract, which expires after next year, or, say Patrik Berglund's. This obviously comes with the caveat that Berglund probably doesn't get you as much in trade as Oshie does, but if the return is Brouwer, maybe don't even bother.

It's worth noting, though, that it's reasonable to assume Dmitrij Jaskin will be the one who slots into Oshie's top-six spot and not necessarily Brouwer, because Jaskin is seen as having a decently high ceiling and maybe he just needs the shot. His goals-per-60 numbers are already comparable with those of Oshie and Berglund's for their careers, though obviously his usage was, shall we say, favorable.

Though interestingly, while Jaskin was sheltered, he wasn't playing competition that much less difficult than Berglund, which, again, raises the question of why you pay Berglund this much. Statistically, Oshie and Berglund are very similar players, so the slight disparity in their cap hits ($475,000) seems like the latter was more of a bargain. But the difference is, Oshie played the toughest minutes of just about any Blues forward and got the same results as a veteran who had to be handled like a rookie.

To that end, on some level the Oshie trade seems like a money move in addition to a hockey one, but the logic behind it still baffles. St. Louis is often talked about as a “budget team,” and to some extent they are. Doug Wilson talked about being able to spend as freely as other teams in the league after the Blues were eliminated in 2014, and said that they'd probably continue being able to spend to the level seen in 2013-14. But as you can see below, they flew past that mark this season, and now look as though they're positioned to be a cap team once again for next year.

The numbers below indicate cap hits and not actual salary, which is going to differ slightly. Budget teams will often try to take on low-salary, high-cap hit deals for this reason.

View photos CapGeek/War on Ice More

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