St-Louis Blues news -
Less than 5 hours after being named the new General-Manager of the Saint-Louis Blues, GM Fred Younan started right away his mission that consists of lowering the team's payroll (which standed at a frightening height of 67M$) to a respectable 50M$ - WHILE keeping a decently competitive & young team.
His first move was to trade away the very talented, yet highly paid (8.5M$ per year for 4 years), Doug Weight. The veteran center was pleased to hear he's returning to play in beautiful Edmonton Alberta where he spent over 8 years playing for the Oilers. He's also bringing with him on the plane the highly skilled swedish defenseman Christian Backman and a 3rd round pick in the 2004 draft.
Coming the other way are three players: centerman Petr Nedved, left winger and GM personal favorite Raffi Torres and finally Jussi Markkanen who'll probably be the back-up goaltender. The Blues save close to 4M$ while Raffi Torres will provide a model to show the other players what kind of hockey the St-Louis Blues will play: a fast-tempo, in your face type of hockey.. but the hockey club still has a long way to go before reaching this level of play.