NHL trade rumors: Top 5 trade candidates this offseason

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Vince Dunn #29 of the St. Louis Blues (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /

3. Vince Dunn

Team: St. Louis Blues

Position: Defense

Cap hit: N/A (restricted free agent)*

Term: N/A (restricted free agent)

No-trade clauses: None

*$813,750 qualifying offer and arbitration eligible

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Vince Dunn is the first true salary cap casualty on the list. The St. Louis Blues are currently in quite a pickle with their cap situation. They have roughly $6 million in cap space after trading backup goaltender Jake Allen. If the Blues want to re-sign team captain Alex Pietrangelo, they’ve got more work to do.

And if the Blues re-sign Pietrangelo, it likely means Vince Dunn’s on his way out of St. Louis. It will take the Blues roughly $8.5 million a year to re-sign him. Probably more.

Now, there’s one thing that helps out the Blues. Dunn isn’t arbitration eligible yet. He’s only completed three professional seasons and he needs four before he hits arbitration. So the Blues could try to sign Dunn to a cheap contract. As in, probably less than $2 million a year. But if he says no, the Blues won’t have much of a choice.

Dunn’s a very good defensemen and he’s only 23 years old. So if he’s on the market, he won’t have a shortage of suitors.

Potential Suitors

The Devils would be very wise to take advantage of their cap space. It could help them get someone like Dunn. The Devils defense desperately needs a talent infusion and Dunn would provide that.

I could see the Canadiens being interested in him as well. As stated earlier, the Canadiens need left-handed defenseman. Dunn’s a southpaw. Montreal has plenty of draft picks to offer St. Louis and they have plenty of cap space. St. Louis won’t want to take back any salary if they trade Dunn, so those draft picks could give the Canadiens a huge advantage.

The Minnesota Wild are looking to get younger and Dunn would make a lot of sense for them. Their blue line currently doesn’t have any players under the age of 25. Carson Soucy (26 years old) is their youngest defenseman. But the Blues might not be keen on trading Dunn to a division rival, especially if they have other options.

If the Detroit Red Wings want to give their rebuild a jump start, trading for Dunn could provide a spark. They have a lot of RFAs to re-sign, but if they play their cards right, they should still have enough left over to add someone like Dunn on a long-term deal. He’s young enough that it would make sense to give up assets to get him.

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