Offseason Keys: St. Louis Blues

While the expansion draft is set to headline a busy NHL offseason, there are still several other storylines for each team in the months ahead. Here is a closer look at what lies ahead for the St. Louis Blues.

2016-17 was an odd year for St. Louis.  Their preseason announcement that Mike Yeo would take over for Ken Hitchcock as head coach starting in 2017-18 drew some raised eyebrows.  They didn’t get off to the best of starts and instead upped the timeframe for the change, installing Yeo midseason as the bench boss.  That gave the Blues a spark as they finished the regular season on a high note and made it to the second round of the playoffs.  Here are some of the keys to a successful offseason for GM Doug Armstrong.

Add A Top Six Center

Unfortunately for St. Louis, this is a need that almost every team has but finding one would do wonders for them.  They have decent depth down the middle in Paul Stastny, Patrik Berglund, Jori Lehtera, and Vladimir Sobotka but none of them are true number ones.  Stastny is being paid like a top player but didn’t produce like one this season with 40 points (18-22-40) in 66 games.  He can handle the minutes but he’s more of a second liner at this stage of his career.

Finding a number one in free agency is basically impossible as there really aren’t any available; even San Jose’s Joe Thornton is better suited with a lesser workload at this stage of his career.  Accordingly, the trade route is going to be the way to go if Armstrong can find a deal for a top pivot.  There are some intriguing youngsters highlighted by Robby Fabbri that could potentially be part of a package if the right fit were to become available.  With a strong core intact, this is the one piece that could take them to that next level for next season.

New Deal For Parayko

In his rookie season, defenseman Colton Parayko made a strong first impression but he still slipped under the radar for the most part.  That’s far from the case now after a solid sophomore campaign.  The hulking blueliner didn’t have a big jump in the points department (33 to 35) but shouldered a bigger workload after the trade of Kevin Shattenkirk and has solidified himself as a core piece of the future.

Parayko is at the end of his entry-level contract and will be hitting restricted free agency for the first time in July.  He’s due a qualifying offer of $925K but will receive considerably more than that regardless of how long this next contract will be.

What may make things a bit challenging for Armstrong when it comes to getting this done is their salary cap situation.  The team has around $68MM in committed contracts for next season and the cap ceiling isn’t expected to rise by a significant amount.  Even though there aren’t many other notable free agents to deal with, that doesn’t leave a lot of financial wiggle room if the two sides want to hammer out a long-term pact.  Accordingly, a shorter-term bridge deal may be the way they ultimately go, especially if they do intend to make a push for a center upgrade as well.

Determine Shared AHL Affiliation Arrangements

It has been a while since an NHL team did not have an AHL affiliate to themselves but that’s the case that St. Louis finds themselves in.  Their AHL team from this past season (the Chicago Wolves0 is now the primary affiliate of the Golden Knights and the Blues won’t have a replacement team joining the AHL next year.

While Vegas will allow the Blues to send a few prospects to the Wolves for next season as a secondary affiliate, that alone won’t be enough for their player development.  It’s unlikely that any other NHL team will allow St. Louis to send half a team worth of players down – something that was more common in the early 2000s – so Armstrong will not only be negotiating with other GMs this summer on potential trade agreements but also in the hopes of determining some more secondary affiliation agreements to get through 2017-18.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.