St. Louis Blues Re-Sign Adam Gaudette
The St. Louis Blues have re-signed one of their few restricted free agents, as The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Matthew DeFranks reports they’re bringing back forward Adam Gaudette on a one-year, two-way contract extension. Per DeFranks, the deal will pay Gaudette $775K in the NHL and $400K in the AHL but doesn’t carry a minimum salary guarantee if he spends the whole season in the minors.
St. Louis acquired the 26-year-old four months ago as a minor piece in the Ryan O’Reilly trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs. 2022-23 marked the first season Gaudette didn’t see any NHL action since turning pro in 2018, instead playing 65 AHL games split between the Toronto Marlies and Springfield Thunderbirds. He hasn’t been able to produce with any consistency since notching 33 points in 59 games with the Vancouver Canucks in 2019-20, and he’s now on his fifth NHL organization in the past three seasons.
Extended time in the minors may have renewed his offensive confidence, though. While not breaking any records, he did put up a very respectable 27 goals and 51 points in the AHL this year and added a goal in two playoff games for Springfield.
Gaudette did have arbitration rights but would’ve had no leverage to receive anything higher than his qualifying offer of $787.5K. While the NHL cap hit comes in below that, the deal continues a trend of players taking less NHL money than their qualifying offer would have granted them in exchange for more compensation at the minor-league level. He’s a reclamation project-type player, which the Blues seem to be keen on acquiring as of late, and he could push for a fourth-line role in 2023-24 without much eligible competition in the Blues’ AHL and prospect ranks.
Alexander Steen Could Join Blues In Front Office Role
- 2019 Stanley Cup champion Alexander Steen could return to NHL work in some capacity, surmises Bally Sports Midwest’s Andy Strickland. The 2002 first-round selection of the Toronto Maple Leafs would go on to play just over 1,000 NHL games, 765 of which came in a St. Louis Blues jersey. A revered versatile two-way forward, Steen retired 18 months after lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time in his career. If he is to join the ranks of NHLers to keep working in the league in front-office roles, it’s hard to imagine it being with another team than the Blues.
St. Louis Blues Won't Re-Sign Thomas Greiss
- Another Petkau client, Thomas Greiss, will also be hitting the open market. The 37-year-old is in a similar situation to Reimer, although he’s now gone two consecutive seasons without clearing the .900 save percentage mark. The St. Louis Blues’ backup job to starter Jordan Binnington is likely going to rising prospect Joel Hofer, so it makes sense the team wouldn’t be interested in a reunion. The one-time Jennings Trophy winner could also draw interest from teams looking for an inexpensive, experienced backup netminder to start between 15 and 25 games.
Blues Reportedly Not Qualifying Logan Brown
- One player who is going to be on the move is St. Louis Blues center Logan Brown. Eligible to become a restricted free agent, Strickland reports that Brown won’t receive a qualifying offer from the Blues and will therefore become an unrestricted free agent at the start of the new league year. The 25-year-old 2016 11th-overall pick didn’t quite take the step forward in St. Louis that many might have hoped he would, and while he remains an effective AHLer he hasn’t found a way to leverage his combination of size and skill to reliably make an impact at the NHL level. With his time in St. Louis coming to an end, he’ll hit the open market where there will likely be some teams interested in seeing what their staff can do with Brown’s skillset.
St. Louis Blues Add Mike Weber, Michael Babcock To Coaching Staff
The St. Louis Blues have filled out the rest of next season’s coaching staff, hiring Mike Weber as an assistant coach and Michael Babcock as a skills coach today. Late last week, we covered how the Blues were looking to replace their two coaching vacancies soon, in which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Matthew DeFranks hinted at the possibility of a skills coach hire.
Weber, 35, played 351 NHL games across an eight-season career with the Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals. He’d since returned to the Sabres organization, spending the past three seasons as an assistant coach with the AHL’s Rochester Americans. Michael Babcock is the son of soon-to-be Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Mike Babcock, and despite being just 28 years old, this isn’t his first NHL job. He spent the 2022-23 campaign with the Ottawa Senators, doing work with pre-scouting and on-ice skill development, the Blues said.
The two incoming hires replace Mike Van Ryn and Craig MacTavish on the Blues bench, who the team let go of two months ago to the day.
Free Agent Focus: St. Louis Blues
Free agency is less than a month away and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the St. Louis Blues.
Key Restricted Free Agents
D Scott Perunovich – Set to turn 25 in August, Perunovich’s once promising career trajectory was severely impacted by extremely unfortunate injury luck. The left-shot blueliner underwent wrist surgery in March of last year and missed most of this past season after undergoing shoulder surgery in October. He also missed the entirety of the 2020-21 season due to another shoulder surgery.
A 2018 second-round pick, Perunovich had been ranked consistently among the Blues’ top prospects throughout his decorated NCAA career, a tenure at the University of Minnesota-Duluth that included back-to-back National Championships and a Hobey Baker award win.
The promise he showed in college has translated to the AHL, where he’s posted a 1.08 career points-per-game mark as a defenseman.
Unfortunately, though, that impressive scoring rate comes in just 42 career games, and that simple lack of playing time is the most serious obstacle he faces to receiving a significant raise from the $750k he earned this past season. He’s an undoubtedly talented player who smartly took the opportunity to get even more games under his belt by representing the United States at the IIHF World Championships last month, but he’ll need to prove he can stay healthy before he makes a dent in the Blues’ financial plans.
F Logan Brown – Another player who has shown promise but also seen injuries do significant damage to his development, Brown did not take the step forward in St. Louis that he likely hoped for when he received his change-of-scenery trade in 2021. The 2016 11th overall pick is a hulking six-foot-six center whose combination of size and skill has long tantalized scouts.
He’s more recently begun to put things together at the AHL level, scoring 19 points in 21 games for the Springfield Thunderbirds across two seasons but his NHL impact has remained marginal. He’s scored just 17 points in 69 games as a Blue and now at 25 years old, it’s possible St. Louis decides to cut bait rather than extend their hopes that he can develop into something more.
It’s also possible that the Blues opt to retain him at a cap hit similar to his $750k number from last season with the idea of him competing for an NHL spot in training camp and potentially taking on a more permanent role as a top-of-the-lineup player in Springfield.
Other RFAs: F Alexey Toropchenko, F Adam Gaudette, F Hugh McGing, D Tyler Tucker, D Dmitri Samorukov, D Brady Lyle
Key Unrestricted Free Agents
F Josh Leivo – 30-year-old Leivo set career highs in games played in the NHL this past season but unlike his fellow high-scoring 2021-22 Chicago Wolf, Stefan Noesen, Leivo didn’t reach a new stratosphere of offensive production in the NHL. Noesen, Leivo’s teammate on last season’s Calder Cup-winning AHL team, became a valuable secondary scorer for the Carolina Hurricanes and potted 13 goals and 36 points, as well as eight points in 15 playoff games.
Leivo, on the other hand, only managed four goals and 16 points in 51 games.
As a result, while Noesen took advantage of the opportunity his extremely productive 2021-22 AHL campaign afforded him at the next level, placing himself in a position to receive a significant pay raise, Leivo’s now in the spot where one has to wonder if he’s at his most valuable as a top-of-the-lineup AHL scorer.
That’s something the Blues will need to wrestle with, as there’s clearly some real talent that Leivo offers only he may not be best suited as an NHL regular.
In any case, Leivo’s season had its ups and downs but is unlikely to result in St. Louis struggling to find a way to afford to extend him so he can remain part of their organization.
G Thomas Greiss – While 22-year-old Joel Hofer struggled in two games with the Thunderbirds in the playoffs, he helped lead them to the 2021-22 Calder Cup Final (against Leivo’s Wolves!) and had a stellar 2022-23 regular season, posting a .921 save percentage across 47 games. He’ll turn 23 before the end of the month and per CapFriendly has one year remaining of waiver-exempt status.
So as he remains waiver-exempt for another year, it’s definitely possible the Blues choose to give Hofer one more year of seasoning in the NHL before he transitions to NHL duty in 2024-25. But with Vadim Zherenko poised to take on a larger role in Springfield and two other minor-league goalies under contract (Will Cranley and Colten Ellis) Hofer is more likely ticketed for NHL duty next fall.
That means that Greiss, now 37, is highly unlikely to return to St. Louis for another year as the backup to starter Jordan Binnington. The 368-game veteran’s .896 save percentage mirrored the .891 mark he posted last season with the Detroit Red Wings and means Greiss is now two full seasons removed from being an above-average backup goalie. There could still be some leaguewide interest in adding Greiss as an experienced and affordable backup option, but if that’s the case that interest is unlikely to come from the Blues.
F Matthew Highmore – Highmore, an undrafted 27-year-old forward took a big step forward at the AHL level this season, scoring 19 goals and 61 points for the Thunderbirds, a mark that placed him second in team scoring behind sniper Martin Frk. In addition to his exceptional AHL scoring numbers Highmore offers 139 games of NHL experience, and he could be one of the more in-demand AHL free agents, and as a result could earn a more lasting NHL opportunity for next season, similar to what Kiefer Sherwood got from the Nashville Predators this past season.
With Frk headed overseas, it’s possible the Blues prioritize re-signing Highmore to maintain some continuity at the top of their AHL lineup. Though it would be a mistake to not also note that other clubs looking to beef up their AHL lineups are likely to be after Highmore as well.
Other UFAs: F Tyler Pitlick, F Nathan Todd, F Luke Witkowski, D Steven Santini
Projected Cap Space
The Blues are projected to have around $7.5MM in available cap space by CapFriendly, a number that’s not exactly huge but also not going to be eaten into by any significant contract extensions for restricted free agents. GM Doug Armstrong could create some more space by moving out a pricey veteran defenseman such as Nick Leddy, Marco Scandella, or even Torey Krug, and such a trade would open up even more avenues for the Blues to add to their team. Regardless of what specifically the team does, they have a decent purse available to them to make additions, but without moving someone out they might not be able to shop at the top of the market.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
Blues Hoping To Fill Assistant Coach Vacancies This Month
- The Blues are hoping to fill their two assistant coach vacancies by the end of the month, notes Matthew DeFranks of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. GM Doug Armstrong recently indicated that the process is now in the hands of head coach Craig Berube to pare down the candidates. It’s expected that they will hire a defense coach to take the place of Mike Van Ryn but Armstrong suggested that St. Louis could look to take a different route when trying to fill Craig MacTavish’s open spot and are considering a skills or development coach for that role. Assistant Steve Ott and goalie coach David Alexander remain in their roles from this season.
Columbus Blue Jackets Had Interest In Colton Parayko
In a somewhat stunning series of moves, the Columbus Blue Jackets went out and got two top-four caliber defenders on the trade market this week in Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson. Considering how early in the offseason they made these moves, it’s clear that upgrading on defense has been a priority of general manager Jarmo Kekalainen‘s for quite some time.
Late Friday night, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta reported the Blue Jackets had also set their sights on Colton Parayko of the St. Louis Blues, likely as a backup plan in case one of the two transactions they pulled off fell through.
The imposing 6-foot-6 defender is one of the big trade bait pieces on the board this offseason – along with many other of his Blues teammates on defense. It could be a tough transaction to make for St. Louis, though, as the injury-prone 30-year-old is still locked in at a $6.5MM cap hit for seven (yes, seven) more seasons and carries full trade protection.
It hasn’t dissuaded teams from calling, though, as Pagnotta said Columbus isn’t the only team to have demonstrated interest in Parayko’s services so far this offseason. The right-shot D-man’s prospective spot in the Columbus lineup surely disappeared after acquiring Severson this morning, as the team still needs space in the lineup to ice youngsters Adam Boqvist and David Jiricek on the right side.
If a team is to make a successful trade for Parayko, it would surely involve a third-party team to retain some salary. That’s where concerns surrounding his term come in, though – how many assets would the team trading for Parayko need to pay a broker like the Chicago Blackhawks to be on the hook for seven more seasons of Parayko’s deal, even at a marginal cap hit? Few teams would anticipate not spending close to the cap for that stretch of time.
Blues Not Planning To Use A Buyout This Offseason
Like many teams this summer, cap space is at a premium for St. Louis this summer, leading to suggestions that they’ll try to move out a veteran player to free up some wiggle room. If they wind up doing so, it won’t be via the buyout route as GM Doug Armstrong told reporters including Matthew DeFranks of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he doesn’t see the Blues taking that approach with any of their players when the window opens up later this month.
As things stand, the Blues have around $7.5MM in cap room for next season, per CapFriendly, assuming that the Upper Limit only moves up by $1MM. With that money, they have a few forwards to sign and possibly a backup goalie if they feel they’re better off with Joel Hofer getting one more season of starter minutes in the minors before moving up to the NHL full-time. They have enough money to do those things but that won’t leave much left for roster improvements. While Armstrong indicated that he will be looking to be active this summer, he understands the team isn’t a player or two away from getting back in the playoffs.
“I think there’s a little bit of you see the team that got in on the last couple of days go to the finals, it’s like let’s get there really quick again. We want to make sure that we’re doing things that are long-term success. I don’t see us being, as I said, very active. We’re going to be active, but we’re going to be smart active, we’re not just one player away from being a favorite to win.”
Some wondered if defenseman Marco Scandella could be a buyout candidate this summer with one year left on his deal that carries a $3.275MM cap charge. He has struggled in recent seasons and dealt with injury woes in 2022-23 but he was able to return late in the year, making him buyout-eligible. Such a move would have freed up $2MM in cap savings for next season but added $1MM in dead money for 2024-25. Armstrong’s comments would appear to take that idea off the table although it wouldn’t be surprising to see the veteran shopped on the trade market in the coming weeks.
It has been quite a while since St. Louis went the route of a contract buyout as the team has done it only twice with the most recent coming back in 2009 when they opted to buy out the final season of Jay McKee’s contract. It doesn’t appear as if they’ll be ending that streak this summer.
East Notes: Rangers, Holl, Maple Leafs
Already a day after his removal as the head coach of the Nashville Predators, John Hynes has plenty of interest from teams around the NHL. Per Mollie Walker of the New York Post, it appears that the New York Rangers have been given permission to interview Hynes for their head coaching vacancy.
The Rangers have already been heavily linked to Peter Laviolette, but with another veteran head coach now on the open market, it is only natural that the Rangers continue to do their due diligence. Having been a head coach in the NHL for the last nine seasons, Hynes fits the mold of an established coach that the Rangers appear to be after in their search.
In his first five years behind the bench of an NHL team, Hynes took the New Jersey Devils to a 150-159-45 record, appearing in the playoffs once during the 2017-18 season, losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round. After his ouster in New Jersey, Hynes was hired by the Predators prior to the 2019-20 season.
In his four seasons in Nashville, Hynes coached the Predators to the playoffs three times, losing in the first round each year. After all was said and done in Nashville, Hynes held a 134-95-18 record with the Predators.
Other notes:
- In a report today from the Toronto Star, Kevin McGran reports that Justin Holl would like to return to the Toronto Maple Leafs next season. However, Holl’s agent, Brian Bartlett, recognizes that significant turnover is likely coming to the Maple Leafs’ roster this summer, and Holl could very well be an odd man out. Although providing good physical energy to Toronto’s bottom-four defensemen highlighted by his 139 blocks and 151 hits, Holl lacked mightily in the possession game with 28 takeaways compared to 56 giveaways.
- Confirming last week that the General Manager of the St.Louis Blues, Doug Armstrong, did not have an out clause in his contract to join the Maple Leafs as General Manager, Andy Strickland of Bally Sports Midwest reports that Toronto never asked the Blues for permission to speak with Armstrong. Today, the Maple Leafs found their head of the front office by hiring Brad Treliving.