Grading the Jordan Kyrou trade: Blues reload while Capitals load up
We’re offseasoning now, baby.
Thought former New Jersey Devils’ No. 2 overall selection Simon Nemec going to Calgary in exchange for several of the picks the Flames acquired at the deadline was a big deal? What about the Ottawa Senators moving the No. 9 selection to San Jose for now-former Sharks’ young gun William Eklund? You’d be right, of course. In January, those would be the big-ticket, front-page trades.
In June, it took about two hours (or, in the Eklund deal’s case, 40 minutes) until the next domino dropped, a blockbuster between the St. Louis Blues and Washington Capitals that sent three-time 30-goal scorer Jordan Kyrou to the nation’s capital.
The Capitals have taken another huge swing on an uber-talented reclamation project, but, with a mid-first-round pick and speedy winger Connor McMichael headed out West, did it take too much to pry him from a team that had fallen out of love with his game? Conversely, were the Blues too hasty to give up on Kyrou’s dazzling tools? Find out with the latest edition of Daily Faceoff Trade Grades.
St. Louis Blues
Receive:
RFA rights to F Connor McMichael, 25
No. 16 overall selection in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft
C Milton Gästrin, 19
In a vacuum, trading a player in Kyrou, who led their club in goals in consecutive seasons from 2022-25, after the worst campaign of his career should represent a significant risk for St. Louis.
Context is everything, though, and trading Kyrou is another acknowledgement from outgoing GM Doug Armstrong, who will ascend to the role of president when the new league year begins on July 1, and his successor Alex Steen that they can’t keep expecting different results from the same broken core. The Blues’ brass already dealt long-time captain Brayden Schenn at the deadline and attempted to do the same with blueline stalwart Colton Parayko, who balked at a move to Buffalo.
Any reset was always going to end in Kyrou’s departure. An unwilling checker, Kyrou’s (perhaps harsh) reputation as a low-effort floater among St. Louis fans picked up more steam than ever when his shot volume and goal scoring (173 SOG and 18 G, both full-season career lows) plummeted in 2025-26.
As for the return? It’s pretty sweet for a player with full trade protection and at an impasse in his career. The most eye-popping piece of the package is McMichael, if only because he’s already put 315 NHL games on tape.
Armstrong and Steen don’t sign off on this trade without the inclusion of McMichael, 25, who has significant experience at center, some room to grow into a finisher (89th percentile in hardest shot among forwards), and should sign at a manageable rate as a smart, budget option to replace some of Kyrou’s biggest strengths. Like Kyrou, McMichael is a dangerous rush player with legit wheels (85th percentile in max speed among forwards). They need those in St. Louis, where Dylan Holloway would have been the only remaining speed threat on offense.
McMichael’s drawbacks are mostly the same as Kyrou’s, too; outside of a brilliant 2024-25 season (26 G, 57 P), there has often been a disconnect between McMichael’s obvious tools and his merely respectable production. He also sacrifices defensive positioning to get out on the rush, a perceived weakness of Kyrou’s that had largely been replaced by strong metrics on ‘D’ over the past two seasons.
The other key piece is Washington’s first-rounder, which became the fourth first-round pick the Blues own in Friday’s NHL Entry Draft. Three of those, including the Capitals’, are in the top 16, and though Armstrong used all three of his firsts in 2023, it’s hard to believe his trade business is finished as long as he’s sitting on a war chest of that size.
Then there’s young Milton Gästrin, whose name will not be a familiar one to most St. Louis fans but is far from a throw-in as last year’s 37th selection. “Gästrin is a reliable two-way forward who plays with muscle and is a good skater,” Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis said. “Whenever I’ve watched him in Sweden, he has done enough defensively to keep me engaged. He projects as more of a third-liner, but a decent one who plays a detail-oriented game.”
The Blues netted a capable NHLer in McMichael, Gästrin, a decent bet to stick in the show somewhere down the line after a strong age-18 season in the Swedish second tier (10 G, 24 P in 39 GP), and a relatively high pick for a player they had soured on, one whom coach Jim Montgomery healthy scratched on a few occasions. That’s nifty work, even if Armstrong and Co. don’t add another branch to Kyrou’s trade tree ahead of the draft.
Grade: A
Washington Capitals
Receive:
RW Jordan Kyrou, 28 – $8.25-million cap hit through 2031
If it seems like I spent the above section burying Kyrou, it was only to explain why the Blues, rightly or wrongly, lost interest in him in the first place. The Caps nonetheless walk away with an excellent player, one whose flagging confidence should be buoyed in a market that’s glad to have him.
Kyrou is also an excellent fit for an offense that has plenty of hammers in wrecking ball Tom Wilson, brawny youngsters Ryan Leonard and Justin Sourdif, and hulking two-way ace Aliaksei Protas. They needed a scalpel that could cut through defenses more consistently than McMichael. Kyrou’s much-improved defensive numbers (2.26 xGA/60 since 2024, 30th fewest among forwards) should also fit into a team identity that places a high priority on play driving under head coach Spencer Carberry, and the presence of Wilson and Co. will mean his lack of physicality doesn’t stand out so much.
His impressive consistency (no fewer than 27 G or 34 A from 2021-25) before last season’s collapse in production means that Kyrou, whose low-impact style makes him a young 28, is a strong bounce-back candidate, especially if he gets to use his underrated passing vision (38.4 A per 82 GP since 2021) to funnel pucks to Alex Ovechkin on the power play. Still, can Washington walk out of a trade that saw the other guys earn an “A” smelling like roses?
Check out the Capitals’ pro scouting in recent seasons and get back to me. Washington pulled both 20-goal defensemen Jakob Chychrun and Logan Thompson, the third runner-up for the Vezina after each of the past two seasons, off the scrap heap in 2024, only for them to become their two most valuable players.
Even the often infuriating P-L Dubois, acquired for the low-low price of a then-declining Darcy Kuemper, has blossomed into a strong 2C since Brian MacLellan and Chris Patrick rolled the dice on him. If those two, the Caps’ president and GM, respectively, have a hunch, the rest of us would be wise to follow it.
Though the return package was a boon for St. Louis, no part of it was indispensable to Washington. McMichael had his chances (16:34 ATOI since 2023) to become a producer like, say, Kyrou, and didn’t. Neither the loss of Gästrin nor the pick is likely to be felt given the recent home runs they’ve hit with mid-round dart throws.
Cole Hutson, whose comparisons to his brilliant brother, Montreal puckmover Lane Hutson, didn’t look unfair in his abridged debut (10 P in 14 GP). Ilya Protas, Aliaksei’s ‘little’ (6’6, 225 lbs) brother, was a beast of a centerman in the AHL (29 G, +17) and picked up four points in as many NHL games.
Adding a couple of stud kids like that to a roster that didn’t have many holes to begin with, despite a frustrating 2025-26 season, is the ultimate luxury. It also makes futures, even those as valuable as a 16th pick, expendable, especially since Washington still owns Anaheim’s selection (No. 18) from the John Carlson trade.
MacLellan and Patrick’s recent M.O. has been to pick up talented but frustrated players who can thrive after a change of scenery and help the post-Ovi Capitals stay relevant further down the line. Their latest swing is no different, and it has home run potential.
Grade: A