The St. Louis Blues announced they have avoided arbitration with restricted free agent forward Oskar Sundqvist and signed the 24-year-old to a four-year, $11MM deal with an AAV of $2.75MM. The two sides were supposed to meet with an arbitrator on Wednesday. Andy Strickland of Fox Sports Midwest reports that the deal breaks down as follows:
2019-20: $2.25MM
2020-21: $2.25MM
2021-22: $3.5MM
2022-23: $2.0MM
Sundqvist is coming off an impressive season for the Stanley Cup Champion Blues, putting up career highs in almost every category. He scored 14 goals and 31 points for St. Louis, including 101 hits, but saw his value rise, especially in the playoffs. In 25 playoff games, Sundqvist scored four goals and nine points, while registering 74 hits and saw his playing time increase by more than two minutes per game (16:08 ATOI in playoffs compared to 13:49 in the regular season).
The signing will give the Blues approximately $4.37MM in projected salary cap space this summer and the team still has two restricted free agents it needs to sign, including forward Ivan Barbashev and defenseman Joel Edmundson. While Barbashev isn’t eligible for arbitration, Edmundson is expected to have a hearing on Aug. 4. However, the team will be forced to make a move to clear up some cap space, especially to sign Edmundson who made $3MM last season and is likely to garner quite a significant raise.
Where is the source for Edmundson getting a raise as he event admitted this season was a disappointment as well as his stats are down. Is this speculation on moving or do you have a source as I think the only person expendable is Maroon and that everyone is coming back.
Nice deal. He may be more of a bottom six player but he can really play anywhere in the lineup. He probably not done developing either.
The Blues have $4.3 million left under the salary cap at the moment, though the number is probably closer to about $5.7 million since that number includes eight defensemen, two of whom won’t make the team.
Per Tom Timmerman ST Louis Post Dispatch. May want to update this post with those facts