A Junior Trade, a Swapped Billet Family, and A Long Road to the Same Locker Room: Connor McMichael arrives in St. Louis

Go back to January 2018. Connor McMichael is a teenager in the OHL, playing for the Hamilton Bulldogs. The team deals him to the London Knights for a young forward, Robert Thomas. The same Robert Thomas that the Blues had just taken 20th overall in the NHL Draft. McMichael goes to London, steps into Thomas's old billet home. Thomas comes to Hamilton, steps into McMichael's. Two kids, two cities, one trade.

They didn't cross paths much after that. Different junior stops, different NHL drafts, different teams, different conferences, even. But hockey is a small world. Summers happen. Gyms get shared. Barbecues get thrown.

"Funny thing about that is, when we got traded for each other, we actually traded billet families as well," McMichael said Wednesday during his Blues media introduction. "So sometimes there'll be a little family barbecue in the summer, and we'll see each other there."

Now, eight years after that OHL deal, McMichael and Thomas are finally headed to the same locker room, this time in St. Louis, where Thomas has grown into one of the Blues' cornerstones, and McMichael arrives looking to rediscover the form that made him a 26-goal scorer two seasons ago. 

Blues fans should enjoy the all-around, 200-foot forward that McMichael is. He is a young, versatile player who can play both the center and wing positions, processes the game quickly, finds soft spots other forwards miss, and isn't afraid of the dirty work it takes to score in the NHL. Two seasons ago, that skillset helped him reach 26 goals and 57 points. However, last season, as the Capitals took a step back, so did McMichael. 

"Last year was a bit of a down year for me," he said. "The assists were still there, but the goal scoring, not so much...I want to get back to the form I was two years ago, if not better, and help this team make it back to the playoffs."

McMichael spent his junior years as a power-play forward, which turned out to be a bit of an unlikely crash course in penalty killing. Knowing what the PP wants, the lanes it attacks, the spots it hunts, made it easier to take it away. He grew into a legitimate PK contributor in Washington and is eager to keep that going in St. Louis.

"The penalty kill is so important, it kind of goes unnoticed a little bit," he said. "You can win or lose games pretty much every game on special teams. I actually really enjoy it."

Transitioning to a new team is never easy, but the young forward said one of the first things he did after learning about the trade was pull up the Blues' roster. What he found gave him a sense of confidence. A young core around his age, a team with multiple years of competitive windows ahead, and a few faces he already knew, with Joel Hofer and Dylan Holloway as Hockey Canada connections. When asked about his current connection and thoughts on Thomas, McMichael wasn't shy about what playing alongside his old billet-trade counterpart might look like.

"Robbie's one of the most underrated players in the NHL," he said. "He's got real good vision and real good hockey sense. I think it's gonna be pretty easy to play alongside him."

The Blues haven't had detailed lineup conversations with McMichael yet, but he came away from them feeling wanted, and for now, that's enough.

"This organization wants me and appreciates me," he said. "That's all that matters."

Like Jordan Kyrou, who left Washington for St. Louis in this same deal, McMichael is closing a chapter on the only NHL organization he's ever known. He spent his formative years in Washington skating alongside Alex Ovechkin — a player he grew up watching as a kid — and was there for the records, the milestones, and the quiet ways Ovechkin carried himself through all of it.

"Just being able to be alongside him every day, and see the journey that he went through, and how nice of a guy he is off the ice," McMichael said. "He's definitely left an impact on me through hockey that I'll never forget."

Good things to bring to a new city. A junior trade back in 2018 set more in motion than anyone realized at the time with a borrowed billet home, a (now) shared gym, and eventually, a shared locker room. The rest starts this fall.