The St. Louis Blues are one of those teams that are very hard to grade in NHL Free Agency, as they really didn't make a lot of moves. After winning the franchise's inaugural Stanley Cup in 2019, it's been tough sledding in Missouri; they've won just a single round since, and failed to make the playoffs altogether in the 2022-23 season after a 37-win, 81-point showing.

A retool most certainly could be coming for a Blues team that may have put its best days behind them with this core. St. Louis acquired Jakub Vrana from the Detroit Red Wings and claimed Kasperi Kapanen off waivers long before free agency opened, but GM Doug Armstrong made a few more decent moves this summer. That included trading for Kevin Hayes, reuniting with a piece of the Stanley Cup team in Oskar Sundqvist, and adding a few depth forwards in MacKenzie MacEachern and Alexei Toropchenko.

Still, none of those transactions figure to move the needle too much when the 2023-24 season gets underway, and it's hard to think this iteration of the Blues will be back in a playoff spot next season.

Acquired Kevin Hayes

After days of negotiations, the Blues acquired Kevin Hayes from the Philadelphia Flyers right near the end of June. It was a great move for Armstrong and St. Louis; the team gave up just a sixth-round pick in next year's draft, and the Flyers retained half of his salary in the deal. Hayes signed a seven-year contract worth $50 million back in the summer of 2019, and has three years remaining on the contract.

Hayes should bring veteran leadership to Missouri next season, but he's also no slouch offensively despite being 31-years-old. He had his best season as a Flyer last year, recording 18 goals and 54 points. He is a former 25-goal scorer and should absolutely move the needle slotting in at 3C over the next few seasons for the Blues.

Reunited with Stanley Cup champion Oskar Sundqvist

After winning the Stanley Cup with the Blues in 2019, Oskar Sundqvist played three more seasons with the team before he was traded to the Detroit Red Wings in 2022, and again to the Minnesota Wild a year later. But in free agency, he was brought back into the fold on a team-friendly one-year, $775,000 pact.

Sundqvist has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career, being unable to play more than 57 games in any season after a career-best 31 points in 74 games in 2018-19. He added nine points in 25 postseason contests as the Blues ended one of the longest Stanley Cup droughts in the sport. He should slot in on a bottom-six role on a team he is very familiar with.

Signed depth forwards MacEachern, Toropchenko

Besides adding Hayes and Sundqvist, there wasn't too much going on with the St. Louis Blues this offseason, mainly due to cap constraints. But Armstrong brought in some additional depth up front, signing MacKenzie MacEachern and Alexei Toropchenko to two-year deals; MacEachern's is worth $775,000 in average annual value, and Toropchenko's will pay him $1.25 million per year.

MacEachern has played most of his career in the American Hockey League and has never scored more than 10 points at the NHL level. There's a pretty good chance he doesn't make the opening night roster. Toropchenko, on the other hand, adds some flashiness to the bottom six and is still relatively young at 24-years-old. He scored 19 points in 69 NHL games last year, and could increase those totals with more ice time. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but the former No. 113 pick in the 2017 NHL Draft is ready to be an everyday player at the game's highest level.

Final Grade: C+

St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong did say at the NHL Trade Deadline that the team wasn't going to be active in free agency, so it makes sense that not many moves were made this summer. Part of that is due to salary cap constraints; the team just doesn't have a lot of money to work with. Still, it's difficult to give the Blues a good grade when all they can show for the summer is Kevin Hayes and a few depth forwards.

It's looking more and more like the Blues will be retooling for at least the short-term future, but a few missed postseasons will be tolerated after the joyous Stanley Cup run just four years ago. St. Louis still has some great young players, but it's likely there could be some difficult times before this franchise is again ready to compete for the sport's highest prize.