Blues Sign Connor McMichael To Six-Year Deal
The St. Louis Blues have signed forward Connor McMichael to a six-year, $40.5MM contract extension per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. This move will secure the long-term future of the main chip in St. Louis’ trade that sent Jordan Kyrou to the Washington Capitals. It will also avoid salary arbitration between the Blues and McMichael.
McMichael was coming off a two-year, $4.2MM contract signed with Washington in 2024. He earned that deal after a modest break into the Capitals lineup over the course of his entry-level contract. After being selected with the 25th-overall pick in 2019, McMichael turned pro with Washington in 2020 and debuted in the NHL in 2021. He played through 68 games of the 2021-22 season and scored 18 points. Looking for more of a spark from the rookie, Washington re-assigned McMichael to the minors for the 2022-23 season, where he pushed towards a Calder Cup championship with the Hershey Bears while scoring 49 points in 77 games.
That was the jolt the Capitals needed to see – and earned McMichael a nightly lineup role in the NHL lineup for the 2023-24 campaign. He settled in as an impactful third-liner, scoring 33 points and recording a 42 percent faceoff win-rate on 872 draws. It was on the heels of that performance that Washington offered McMichael a two-year extension – a prove-it deal that offered the young center a chance to earn more once he found his footing.
McMichael took the opportunity in stride as the 2024-25 season rolled around. He scored 12 goals in his first 16 games of the season, flaunting a breakaway speed and heads-up playmaking that connected well with Washington’s veterans. That hot scoring pace didn’t continue through the full season – but McMichael’s growing willingness to play feisty and fundamental hockey kept him in Washington’s top-nine. He finished the year with a career-high 26 goals and 57 points.
But while McMichael’s breakout was exciting, much of his 2024-25 campaign was spent on the wing – not the center position that Washington had been developing him into. The Capitals attempted to move McMichael back to center for the 2025-26 season, with mixed results. He again showed strong flashes – including a run of 10 points in eight games in November – but McMichael wasn’t the same speedster while filling the middle lane. He finished the year with just 14 goals and 46 points, while posting a 43.0 faceoff percentage – exactly in-line with his career average.
A change of scenery will offer McMichael the chance to prove his everyday value after adjusting to the NHL game. He is still a young pro – only 25 years old – and shouldn’t be tasked with playing center on a Blues club that also acquired Mason McTavish. Instead, McMichael will step up as the Blues’ direct replacement for Kyrou – who rotated throughout the lineup while struggling to fit under head coach Jim Montgomery last season. Kyrou also scored 46 points last year – a dismal stat line, despite his strong play away from the scoresheet, after four seasons of at least 65 points.
McMichael’s speed and playmaking ability could help him fit into Kyrou’s play-driving role. The Blues will look towards Dylan Holloway, Jimmy Snuggerud, and Jake Neighbours to drive their ship next season – while McMichael and McTavish take the space to carve out their new roles.
McMichael’s top competition for a second-line role will be Pavel Buchnevich, who has also seen his impact dwindle over the last two seasons. Buchnevich scored just 48 points in 81 games – and spent time on the fourth line late in the year. He could be in-line to lose his top-six standing to Holloway and McMichael, unless he can rediscover the scoring that drove him to 76 points in his first season with the Blues. That lineup competition could be exactly what St. Louis is looking for after a year where many of their forwards seemed too comfortable with their assignments. A six-year deal will offer McMichael the security he needs to focus on winning that competition – and could land St. Louis with a high-value contract through his prime years.
Hearing Dates Set For Players Who Filed For Arbitration
Salary arbitration hearings are a little more than a week away with a total of 15 players filing for one earlier this month. Ottawa’s Xavier Bourgault has already signed while the other 14 are still without contracts. PuckPedia has received the schedule for hearing dates, which is as follows:
July 20
D Jamie Drysdale, Flyers
F Cole Perfetti, Jets
July 22
F Trevor Zegras, Flyers
July 23
G Jet Greaves, Blue Jackets
July 25
F Connor McMichael, Blues
F Jason Robertson, Stars
July 27
F Cole Sillinger, Blue Jackets
July 28
F Nicholas Robertson, Penguins
July 29
D Braden Schneider, Rangers
D Ronan Seeley, Hurricanes
July 30
F Kirby Dach, Canadiens
F Alex Jefferies, Islanders
August 1
F Peyton Krebs, Sabres
G Akira Schmid, Panthers
Philadelphia will be busy early in the process but that is by choice, as teams can request where their players are scheduled on the arbitration docket. Conversely, teams like Montreal, Florida, and Buffalo likely requested that their players be placed at the back, allowing for more time for negotiations or planning.
A refresher on the arbitration rules:
- A player and team can settle on a deal at any point before the hearing starts.
- Once the hearing has taken place, the arbitration decision must be issued by email within 48 hours of the closing.
- Arbitration awards can only be one or two years in length; players who are in their final year of restricted free agency are only entitled to a one-year term.
- The team decides on the awarded term, as these were all player elections.
- The team can walk away from the arbitration decision if a contract with an average annual value of more than $4.9508MM is Teams have 48 hours to decide if they’ll accept or walk away.
Once a team has had all of its cases settled or awarded, a second buyout window will open up three days later. However, only a player who was on the roster at the trade deadline and has a cap charge of $4MM or more is eligible to be bought out during this 48-hour window.
Blues Sign Oskar Sundqvist
The Blues are bringing back a familiar veteran. The team announced today that they’ve signed unrestricted free agent center Oskar Sundqvist to a one-year, two-way contract. The deal will pay $850K in the NHL and $300K at the AHL level. PuckPedia adds (Twitter link) that the deal has a $350K guarantee.
The 32-year-old played in 52 games with St. Louis last season, picking up five goals and 12 assists in just under 13 minutes per night of ice time. While he was a healthy scratch at times, he also missed 11 games with a trio of injuries.
Over his 11-year NHL career, Sundqvist has 67 goals and 114 helpers in 545 appearances. The bulk of those outings have come over his two stints with the Blues; his best showing offensively also came with them back in 2018-19 when he had 31 points.
A fourth liner for most of last season, Sundqvist has likely dropped a spot or two on the depth chart now. St. Louis added Mason McTavish in a draft day trade while also converting Dillon Dube’s minor-league deal last season to an NHL pact for the upcoming season. Winger Ross Johnston was also added in free agency, covering a spot on the fourth line that could have been available otherwise.
Accordingly, while it’s certainly quite possible that Sundqvist breaks camp as a depth forward, it’s also possible that he finds himself on waivers for the purpose of AHL assignment in the fall. If that happened and he passed through unclaimed, it would be his first time playing at the minor league level since the 2017-18 campaign when he played in six games with AHL San Antonio, the former affiliate of the Blues.
Examining The Blues’ Offseason Thus Far
Now that the dust has settled on the NHL Entry Draft and the early days of free agency, it’s fair to begin making sense of the direction certain teams are headed. One of the busier and more interesting teams this offseason has been the St. Louis Blues, who have taken a no-holds-barred approach to retooling their roster, including the trades of forward Jordan Kyrou and multiple first-round picks, as well as the Jonathan Drouin buyout. The Blues have also been busy adding to their lineup, bringing in forwards Connor McMichael and Mason McTavish, as well as defenseman Brandon Carlo and prospect Milton Gastrin. All of it looks dishevelled and all over the place, but for a team that has badly needed a retool, it’s a decent start for the Blues, though it’s a risky one as well.
The risky moves involve Kyrou and McTavish, and it’s hard to say which move carries more risk. Trading Kyrou was certainly a gamble, as he is a bona fide top-six forward who can put up offense. While he is talented, Kyrou struggled offensively last season, and it’s fair to wonder if the Blues sold low on the 28-year-old until you look at the return. St. Louis received forward McMichael, the number 16 selection in this year’s draft, and the aforementioned Gastrin, which was fair value for the highly sought-after Kyrou. Some might wonder why St. Louis felt compelled to deal Kyrou, but there was clearly something off about the core in St. Louis, which appeared so talented on paper yet was unable to get it done on the ice. Kyrou and McMichael suffered from the same affliction last season, namely that their talent levels didn’t line up with their on-ice production. A fresh start should work out well for both of them.
The other major risk for St. Louis was dealing two first-round picks for McTavish, who has a ton of upside and is just 24 years old. Like Kyrou, McTavish had a down year, and Anaheim elected to sell low, although St. Louis paid a hefty price for the former third-overall pick. There are concerns about McTavish’s skating, but St. Louis probably isn’t concerned about the top-end speed of their power forward with the heavy shot. That will be the risk with McTavish, though, because as good as his hands are and as accurate as his shot is, he needs to get around the ice with some pace, and it remains to be seen whether he will improve that.
Then there was the buyout of Drouin, which, in a vacuum, made sense given that he was owed $4MM and had dramatically underperformed last season in the first year of his two-year deal. Drouin had signed the contract last summer with the New York Islanders, who quickly realized he wasn’t a fit and moved him as part of the trade for Brayden Schenn. Drouin had been an effective player in the years prior while with the Colorado Avalanche, but didn’t fit with the Islanders or the Blues last season and is now a UFA. What made the Drouin buyout odd is that the Blues didn’t really use the savings on another move (other than the Ross Johnston signing) and instead opted to keep the cap space available. But with a full roster of 23 and over $10MM available, it’s possible they don’t spend it. It could be that St. Louis is staying under an internal cap and needed to save actual dollars, which might be the only real explanation for buying out a player who could’ve had some value at the NHL Trade Deadline if he had a bounce-back season.
The signing of Johnston was one of the only other major pieces of news for the Blues on the first day of free agency, as they kept things quiet, signing only him to a three-year, $6MM deal, and Dillon Dube to a one-year deal at the league minimum. Johnston will bring sandpaper to the Blues’ lineup and is effectively just an enforcer at this stage of his career, while Dube will be an unknown at the NHL level, having not played an NHL game since January 2024.
Overall, it’s hard to fault St. Louis for wanting to be proactive in their retooling rather than waiting around for prospects and picks to hopefully work out. By converting Kyrou and their extra first-round picks into young, NHL-ready talent, St. Louis has made themselves more difficult to play against and kept intact a fairly young core that also includes Robert Thomas, Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway. They didn’t go about things in the most cohesive manner, but there are times in the NHL when teams make moves to set up something bigger down the road or as part of a bigger plan. The Blues are a team in transition at the moment, and some of the moves made should inject energy into a group that had perhaps become a little stale and a little pessimistic about some of the trades made towards the end of last season, when some key pieces were sent out the door at the trade deadline. St. Louis got younger this summer, and it’s hard to judge the totality of their moves until the team takes to the ice next October.
Blues Loan Milton Gastrin To SHL
The St. Louis Blues won’t hold on to a player acquired in Jordan Kyrou‘s move to the Washington Capitals. The Blues have loaned centerman Milton Gastrin to the SHL’s Brynas IF for the 2026-27 season. Gastrin has yet to fully move over from Sweden’s pro leagues, though he did make his AHL debut with a single appearance in the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs. Now on a new squad, Gastrin will head back to Sweden’s pros for another season.
A return to Sweden will also mark a return to the SHL for Gastrin, who spent last season in the HockeyAllsvenskan following MoDo Hockey’s demotion in 2025. The minor-pro league proved a stable spot for the young center. He notched 10 goals and 24 points in 39 games on the year, sixth-most on MoDo and fifth among U21 players in the league. That performance helped Gastrin plant his feet among pros after debuting in the SHL with eight scoreless games in 2024-25. He coupled those appearances with a dominant season at the U20 level, scoring 42 points in 40 games.
Gastrin was also a standout at the international level through his junior career. He captained Sweden to a Bronze Medal at the 2024 U17 World Hockey Challenge and Hlinka Gretzky Cup and a Silver Medal at the 2025 World U18 Junior Challenge, as well as joining Sweden en route to a Gold Medal at the 2026 World Junior Championship.
The 19-year-old Gastrin will boast interesting, long-term promise for the Blues organization. He has stood out as a capable, two-way center through his young career – even posting a 46.86 faceoff percentage on 414 draws in his first pro year. Gastrin will need to continue developing his skating and physical game against top-level competition. A move to Brynas should foster that success, after the club finished sixth in the SHL before losing in the quarter-finals. Gastrin will compete for a middle-six, center role while eyeing a potential return to the AHL on the other side of the 2026-27 season.
15 Players Elect For Salary Arbitration
The deadline to file for salary arbitration passed at 5 P.M. ET on July 5. 15 players elected to head to arbitartion before then, including the market’s top free agent, Dallas Stars’ winger Jason Robertson. Arbitration hearings will take place between late-July and early-August. Filing for arbitration will restrict players from negotiating contracts with any other team, removing high-value RFAs like Robertson from offer sheet eligibility. Players will have the opportunity to continue negotiating with their current team and could avoid arbitration by reaching a new deal before their hearing occurs. The full list of players who filed for salary arbitration in 2026, per Chris Johnston of The Athletic, is as follows:
F Xavier Bourgault (Ottawa Senators)
F Kirby Dach (Montreal Canadiens)
D Jamie Drysdale (Philadelphia Flyers)
G Jet Greaves (Columbus Blue Jackets)
F Alex Jefferies (New York Islanders)
F Peyton Krebs (Buffalo Sabres)
F Connor McMichael (St. Louis Blues)
F Cole Perfetti (Winnipeg Jets)
F Jason Robertson (Dallas Stars)
F Nicholas Robertson (Pittsburgh Penguins)
G Akira Schmid (Florida Panthers)
D Braden Schneider (New York Rangers)
D Ronan Seeley (Carolina Hurricanes)
F Cole Sillinger (Columbus Blue Jackets)
F Trevor Zegras (Philadelphia Flyers)
Blues Sign Ross Johnston
According to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, the St. Louis Blues have signed forward Ross Johnston. Lou Korac of the NHL reports that it’ll be a three-year, $6MM ($2MM AAV) contract for Johnston. The Blues have confirmed the signing. It will be general manager Alexander Steen‘s first official move after being named to the top chair on Tuesday.
Johnston led the Ducks’ forwards in two of his three seasons with the club. That includes the 2025-26 campaign, when he recorded 107 PIMs through 62 games. Johnston also contributed 14 points and a team-leading 192 hits to the season, while averaging less than 10 minutes of ice time each game. Those marks underscore Johnston’s imposing physical presence, a style brought out through his three years in Anaheim. Johnston recorded 117 PIMs and 139 hits in his first season with the Ducks, nearly half of the 283 PIMs and 355 hits he recorded in seven seasons and 134 games with the New York Islanders. Johnston surpassed both marks this season, combining for 296 PIMs and 465 hits in 173 games with the Ducks.
St. Louis will lean on Johnston as a fourth-line bruiser after trading captain Brayden Schenn – who recorded 138 hits last season – to the New York Islanders at the Trade Deadline. Johnston will join forces with grinder Nathan Walker – who led the Blues with 179 hits last season amd 281 hits in 2024-25.
Blues Sign Jonatan Berggren To One-Year Deal
According to the team over at PuckPedia, the St. Louis Blues have signed Jonatan Berggren to a one-year, $2MM contract for the 2026-27 season. Despite not being tendered a qualifying offer by yesterday’s deadline, the Blues will instead retain Berggren for another season.
The move makes sense on paper. Even though Berggren was owed a qualifying offer of $1.825MM, he was eligible for salary arbitration. Hence, he and St. Louis were able to bypass that altogether by agreeing to a moderate pay increase. Now Berggren will play out next season on a $2MM salary and be a restricted free agent once again next summer, who is eligible for arbitration.
Berggren’s 2025-26 season was somewhat of a mixed bag. After falling out of the lineup with the Detroit Red Wings, he was exposed to the waiver wire, where the Blues ultimately acquired him for nothing. He got off to a decent start with St. Louis, scoring three goals and five points in his first eight contests, averaging 14:05 of ice time per game.
Then came the streakiness that became a contributing factor in his exit from Detroit. Over his next 10 games with the Blues, Berggreen tallied only one goal despite seeing his average ice time bumped to over 15 minutes per game. Still, he ended the regular season on one of his positive streaks, registering two goals and 10 points in his final 18 contests.
There’s no doubt that Berggren has the inherent skill to be a middle-six contributor. He displayed that talent with the Red Wings, too, but as mentioned, he was far too streaky to hold down a regular role in the lineup. The Blues will want to see what a full year of Berggren in the lineup looks like, and can only hope that he finds more consistency in St. Louis.
Blues Buy Out Jonathan Drouin’s Contract
Jonathan Drouin is officially a free agent.
The St. Louis Blues announced they placed Drouin on waivers to buyout his contract, which had a remaining year left on his deal at $4MM AAV. The 31-year-old was acquired by the Blues in a trade package from the New York Islanders back at this year’s deadline as part of the Brayden Schenn deal. After 21 points in 55 games with the Islanders, he followed up with three points in nine games with St. Louis in 2025-26.
The buyout will last two years on the Blues’ books. Year one of the buyout will save them $2.67MM on their cap savings, but for both years, the buyout will tally a $1.33MM cap hit against St. Louis.
Drouin, despite this, intends to continue his NHL career, as reported by Pierre LeBrun. Formerly the third-overall pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning back in 2013, perhaps there is a home that would take in Drouin’s services on a low-end, prove-it deal. The Sainte-Agathe, Quebec, native has competed in 671 career NHL regular-season games, totaling 111 goals and 398 points. Notably, he peaked at a career-high 56 points in 79 games in 2023-24 with the Colorado Avalanche in the first season after he ended a six-year, $5.5MM AAV deal in Montreal.
The Blues have $13MM in cap space after their transactions, which included tendering qualifying offers to recent acquisition Connor McMichael and defensive prospect Leo Loof.
More to come.
Blues Acquire Mason McTavish
The St. Louis Blues have made a move to reinforce their current roster, landing Anaheim Ducks center Mason McTavish in exchange for the 15th and 29th overall selections of tonight’s first round, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Both St. Louis and Anaheim have officially announced the deal.
Owning four first rounders entering the draft, capped off with taking in #16 from Washington for Jordan Kyrou three days ago, outgoing general manager Doug Armstrong was intent on helping out his group sooner rather than later. Just this morning it was reported that McTavish had interest from both the Rangers as well as the Blues, and with New York snagging Pavel Dorofeyev from Vegas, it’s Armstrong who closes the deal for the 23-year-old, leaving the new Alexander Steen regime with a player who fits nicely into their youth movement.
Rather than pour on to what is already a strong prospect pool enhanced by their selections of Tynan Lawrence and Maddox Dagenais, the Blues bring in the former third overall selection in McTavish (2021), using picks acquired from trades involving a pair of 34-year-olds from the previous era; Brayden Schenn and Justin Faulk. The young center is already locked up for the foreseeable future, as the Blues take on McTavish’s $7MM cap hit which runs through 2030-31. On the other hand, already among the teams most rich in cap room, Anaheim now jumps up to over $44 million in space set to be players on virtually any top free agent as well as the trade market.
Drafted to be a major piece in their rebuild, the 6’1″ lefty has stalled out as a Duck, never truly breaking out over the past several seasons while averaging 44 points in a season across his last four. Scoring 17 goals to go along with 24 helpers in 75 games this past year, he was surpassed by brilliant 21-year-old Leo Carlsson. Demand for centers is as high as ever, and even if McTavish maxes out as a middle-six pivot, short of his initial upside, it’s a worthy gamble for the Blues to take. Needing to improve his foot speed and defensive capabilities for any hope at a large NHL role in the future, McTavish already wasn’t in the best standing, and he didn’t fit into first-year head coach Joel Quenneville‘s system, being scratched at times.
Already acquiring Connor McMichael from Washington in the Kyrou deal, St. Louis has revamped their center core behind Robert Thomas, seeking out two motivated players who have viable NHL experience to this point. Trade rumors continue to surround the 26-year-old star, but assuming they continue to be unmoved by trade offers and he is still with the team next fall, the Blues have turned the page smoothly from Schenn.
Just a few years ago, Anaheim fans would be terrified at the prospect of him, along with Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale all being shipped out already. Yet even if it hasn’t gone exactly to plan, the Ducks are in a great place, where a trade return entirely based on draft capital doesn’t have major implications for their roster. Finding a change of scenery for their former top prospect and simply getting out of his contract is a win in and of itself. Outside of Carlsson, their center ice corps are held down by Mikael Granlund as well as Ryan Poehling, both of whom have been nice fits with the team.
Even after they’ll handle business for restricted free agents Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier, Anaheim will continue to be a team to watch as rarely do playoff teams march into the summer with so much financial flexibility. As for the Blues, despite recent transactions, their roster still features a number of big ticket veterans. If all goes to plan, McTavish will be a breakout contender as a viable second-line center, with the team setting the stage for a season which feasibly could bounce back into dark horse playoff contention.
Image Credit Griffin Hooper-Imagn Images