Hayes motivated to prove detractors wrong after trade from Flyers

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Kevin Hayes knew the inevitable was coming. The end destination made it more plausible to accept.

When Hayes was traded by the Philadelphia Flyers to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday for a 2024 sixth-round draft pick, it ended weeks of speculation that seemed like just a formality, and turned another veteran player going to a Blues roster with something to prove, joining fellow forwards Jakub Vrana and Kasperi Kapanen.

"You never want to get traded out of any job that you're doing whether it's sports or you're at a desk job," Hayes said Wednesday from Nashville, where he coincidentally booked a golf trip at the same time as the 2023 NHL Draft. "You feel like you're letting someone down, but I looked at it as a situation where the Blues wanted me and they see something that I can bring to them.

"You feel like you're letting someone down. Now I can use that to go to St. Louis and kind of show everyone that I can still play in this league at a high level. It wasn't that long ago I was at the All-Star Game (2023). I'll probably use that as motivation. Like you said of those other guys, they have different situations and you can kind of follow them when they went to St. Louis, they were much better players there than what they were given credit for. They've both been successful players in the NHL and I feel like they found their game in St. Louis."

The 31-year-old Hayes, who had 54 points (18 goals, 36 assists) in 81 games last season but fell out of favor with Flyers coach John Tortorella, even to the point where he was a healthy scratch last season.

And with the Flyers undergoing a makeover with a fresh, new front office, including first-time general manager Daniel Briere, the 10-year veteran was on the chopping block looking for a fresh start.

"I expected to get traded honestly," Hayes said. "It's not hard to figure it out with the way that the Flyers were going. I heard a couple days ago that the Blues were a possible destination. My agent and I were super-excited about it. I think it's a good fit.

"I think I'll fit in well with this team as a center with the wings that they have there. ... It's always a surprise, I guess, when you get a call from the GM saying we're going to send you to a new team, but I kind of knew it was coming."

And in order to shed Hayes off their roster, the Flyers are retaining 50 percent of Hayes' remaining $7,142,857, which puts the Blues on the hook for a reasonable $3,571,429.

"We're trying to add players to our group and keep as many assets as we can," Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. "He's sort of on the vein of getting Kapanen or Vrana, another good NHL player who plays in our top nine. Contract fits into our structure. Timeline fits into our structure. In the next few years, we certainly see the strength of our younger players being wingers right now, so it doesn't preclude anyone from getting into our group. So all the circumstances came together and we think he can compete in our (top) nine.

"We said at one point we wanted to add one more player into our top nine. If you take that group and you put a slash with Neighbours and Blais. That means if you delete one of those two top nines, if you believe both are, you have 10. If you delete either or, we have eight or nine. We're excited. We think we've rounded out our forward group."

And that top nine indeed was another center to go with Robert Thomas and Brayden Schenn.

"Yeah, '[Pavel Buchnevich] has played a little bit of center. Kapi's played center before. We have players we could have put in there; this is a natural centerman," Armstrong said. "It sort of balances (things) out. It's always easier to move centermen's to the wing; lots of teams do that. We were trying to move players that played on the wing to the center. I think it alleviates a little bit of the pressure on [Nikita] Alexandrov. We really liked the way [Zach] Dean played last year. It gives him a more natural growth pattern. These guys can get into the league and as I said, it's easy to go over on the wing; it's harder to go into the middle. I think getting a centerman was important to us."

Hayes was sold on St. Louis by his cousin from his mom's side of the family -- none other than former NHL great and Blues director of recruitment: Keith Tkachuk.

"I talked to Keith a lot," Hayes said. "I used to look up to Keith and then (Keith's sons) Matthew and Brady looked up to my brother [Kevin Hayes] and I. We were first in the NHL. Now I'm kind of finding myself looking up to Matthew and Brady.

"Keith's been amazing. His wife Chantal's been great with (Hayes' fiancee) Katya. I have Brady's wedding coming up this summer, they're coming to mine as well. I'm sure we'll be peppering them with questions on where to live, where to eat and stuff like that."

And most importantly, why do the Blues intrigue Hayes and what makes them a good fit?

"They have won very recently," Hayes said of the Blues' 2019 Stanley Cup championship. "They have a great goalie, a great d-corps and the nine wingers that they have in their top nine are some of the best in the league. It's very intriguing and very exciting to be a part of that group.

"I'm definitely excited to go to a new team. I don't think it's a situation where I've ever lost confidence in my game. I've been in the league for 10-plus years now. I know what I can do to help the team. At some point last year, I felt like, whether it was my playing ability or a coach's view of me, or I guess it's the organization's view of me, I don't have anything bad to say about Philly or the coaches or Danny B or 'Jonesy' [Keith Jones]. I just kind of feel like we started to go our own separate ways throughout the middle of the season. They were going in a different direction halfway through the year. But now I'm onto a new team, I think it's a new start. I'm motivated to kind of, I guess you can say, prove those people wrong."

And Armstrong is hoping adding another motivated player fuels the burning desire to make the Blues, who missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 2017-18 at 37-38-7, a welcomed addition.

"We had a chance to meet with him today and obviously things didn't go well for the Flyers in general and last year," Armstrong said of Hayes. "I think a fresh start going to a team that has players in his age group or you have a [Brayden] Schenn and you have a [Justin] Faulk, you have [Colton] Parayko, you have [Nick] Leddy, you have [Torey] Krug, you have [Brandon] Saad, and as we try and input younger players into that group, there's also players in his age bracket that want to win now. I think having that type of player motivated is a good thing."