The St. Louis Blues are in an interesting position with the NHL regular season almost three-quarters complete and the trade deadline fast approaching.
St. Louis is in the thick of the playoff race, four points behind Nashville for the final Western Conference wild-card spot with two games in hand on the Predators. There is no legal Missouri sports betting for residents to increase their stake in the action, but the Blues should keep hockey fans in the Show-Me State interested right down to the wire.
But will the Blues be buyers or sellers before the March 8 NHL trade deadline? It is a quandary for a team that might be good enough to get to the playoffs but does not look likely to do a lot of damage if it gets there.
Which brings us to wing Pavel Buchnevich. The Russian-born forward has a team-high 22 goals and is second on the team with 46 points in 55 games this season. He would draw a pretty good haul in return if the Blues were to deal him. So BetMissouri.com, where you can find the best Missouri sportsbook promo codes when the state launches sports betting, made a list of teams that could trade for Buchnevich in the next couple of weeks. Here’s what we came up with:
Pavel Buchnevich Next Team Odds
You could not get these odds from operators at potential Missouri sports betting apps, only here at BetMissouri.com.
Who Might Trade For Buchnevich
First things first: We think the most likely outcome is that Pavel Buchnevich either stays in the “Gateway to the West” or goes to a club other than the ones on our list. That has an implied 58.4% chance of happening, or -140 in American odds parlance.
The Edmonton Oilers are the team we deem most likely to try to acquire Buchnevich, who has a deal worth $6.3 million next season, according to Spotrac.com. He’s making $6.9 million in base salary this season, but his salary cap hit is $5.8 million per year until he hits unrestricted free agent status for the 2025-26 season. That’s one reason the Blues could contemplate trading such a valuable piece as Buchnevich; Spotrac numbers say the team has no cap room right now.
Because the BetMGM Missouri Sportsbook can’t launch until the state clears the way for legal wagering, we have to turn to neighboring Kansas. There, BetMGM has Edmonton as Stanley Cup co-favorites at +800 odds, alongside the Florida Panthers.
The Detroit Red Wings and the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights are tied for the second-best odds on our exclusive list to acquire Buchnevich, at +1200 (a 7.7% implied probability) apiece. Next up are the New York Rangers (+1500, 6.2%), the organization where the 28-year-old forward spent his first five seasons before they traded him to St. Louis in July 2021.
Two more Stanley Cup contenders, the Boston Bruins and Colorado Avalanche, are farther down on the BetMissouri.com odds board to pick up Buchnevich.
One last thing to ponder: Will there ever be a second NHL team in Missouri again as there was for a brief spell in the 1970s? The Kansas City Scouts only existed for two years before moving to Denver in 1976 to become the Colorado Rockies; in 1982 the franchise relocated again to New Jersey, where they have been known as the Devils ever since. Check out our next NHL franchise odds to see where we rate Kansas City as a possible destination, if the NHL should decide to either expand again or relocate a franchise.
