One of the headlines that stole the 2026 NHL Trade Deadline was the potential availability of St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas. The 26-year-old has five seasons remaining at an $8.125 million cap hit, and he has been a point-per-game player before even entering his prime. It would've taken a haul to pry Thomas out of St. Louis, and even if Doug Armstrong accepted, Thomas also had to waive his no-trade clause, which he wasn't asked to do, according to his comments on The Sheet with Jeff Marek.
“No, no, I was never asked anything from the Blues. There was everything that I heard was coming from the insiders and different things online,” Thomas told Marek and Greg Wyshynski. “I just want to be clear: I was never asked, and nor did I ever ask for a trade.”
Just because Thomas wasn't asked to waive his no-trade clause doesn't mean a deal can't come to fruition in the offseason. It might be in the Blues' best interest to wait until the offseason to make this deal, as that would bring all teams in the league into the discussions rather than just the contenders. Since Thomas is a player who could fit on a team coming out of a rebuild, the non-contenders for this season might net the Blues the best return in the offseason.
Armstrong may not have asked Robert Thomas to waive his no-trade clause, but that doesn't mean there weren't discussions around him. It simply means that no team offered a deal that made sense for Armstrong, not even the Buffalo Sabres, who were rumored to be very close to acquiring the center.
