Were The Blues Winners at the Trade Deadline or Losers?

I wrote it when the trade happened:

The question I have for St. Louis is this. Are we even sure at this point in their respective careers that Miller is an upgrade on Halak, or that Ott is an upgrade on Stewart?

So now that the Blues basically wound up exiting the playoffs in the same exact fashion as last year, with Ryan Miller being quite a bit less than expected, can we go back and evaluate the trade deadline again?

Would things have been different for the Blues had they not made that trade and played either Halak or Elliott in the playoffs? Would either of them have won a couple of more games down the stretch that prevented the Blues from falling into this matchup with Chicago? We’ll never know, but it’s clear that the all-in on Ryan Miller didn’t get it done.