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St. Louis Blues Sign Will Cranley

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Another young prospect has landed an NHL deal, as the St. Louis Blues have signed Will Cranley to a three-year entry-level contract. That contract will start in 2022-23, while Cranley will continue to play with the Ottawa 67’s of the OHL for the rest of this season. Per CapFriendly, the terms of the $842K AAV contract are as follows:

2022-23: $750,000 base, $75,000 signing bonus
2023-24: $775,000 base, $75,000 signing bonus
2024-25: $775,000 base, $75,000 signing bonus

Selected 163rd overall in 2020, Cranley actually made his professional debut with the Utica Comets last season when the OHL was shut down due to COVID restrictions. He stopped 21 of 23 shots in a losing effort, but that performance is obviously encouraging enough to help his case when it came to earning an NHL contract.

It’s the junior level that has actually proven more difficult for the 6’5″ netminder, who has a career .878 save percentage in 66 games for Ottawa so far. That number has actually gone down this season with his .872 save percentage 2021-22, and Cranley has lost 21 of his 34 appearances.

Still, goaltenders with a frame like his don’t come around every day, and the Blues must obviously believe that their development staff can coax the best out of him at the next level. There’s a lot of work to do, but it can start in earnest next season when he jumps full-time to the professional level.

Lower-Body Injury For Oskar Sundqvist

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  • Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist suffered a lower-body injury in last night’s game against Buffalo, Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes. The good news for St. Louis is that head coach Craig Berube indicated that the injury isn’t related to the hip or knee that he had recent surgery done on.  Sundqvist has 15 points in 35 games this season – the highest point per game average of his career – and is set to be re-evaluated later today.

East Notes: Chiarot, Lyubushkin, Poulin

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There’s a gigantic Saturday night rumors dump, courtesy of Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on Sportsnet’s Hockey Night in Canada. It starts with maybe the most-discussed name on the trade bait list in recent days in Montreal Canadiens defender Ben Chiarot. Talks are reportedly heating up, with Friedman singling the St. Louis Blues on the program as a team interested in Chiarot’s services. It’s entirely likely that Chiarot is another name gone before the deadline, as the Habs certainly don’t seem to be afraid to get out ahead of the action. Chiarot would give the Blues three options with considerable NHL experience at left defense, as Niko Mikkola, Jake Walman, and the injured Scott Perunovich have competed for ice time there this season as well. But none of them have the games played and playoff experience at the NHL level that Chiarot has.

More notes from the Eastern Conference today:

  • The Arizona Coyotes are holding Ilya Lyubushkin out of the lineup as a healthy scratch, and Friedman names the Toronto Maple Leafs as one of the top teams interested in the Russian defender’s services. With Nick Ritchie falling out of favor in Toronto, and Arizona’s willingness to take on buried contracts, the fit seems logical as Friedman suggests. Lyubushkin would be a spectacular depth add for Toronto’s right side defensively, who, aside from T.J. Brodie, has faced inconsistency this season.
  • Jeff Marek reports that prior to the commencement of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the Montreal Canadiens reached out to the representatives of Canadian women’s forward Marie-Philip Poulin about what her career plans were after the games, suggesting Montreal had an interest in having Poulin within the organization. While no official job offer was ever made, all indications point to Poulin wanting to continue her on-ice career. The 30-year-old forward still has multiple opportunities to represent Canada on the international stage.

Vladimir Tarasenko Listed As Day-To-Day, Won't Play Tonight

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  • The Blues announced that winger Vladimir Tarasenko will not play tonight in Toronto due to an undisclosed injury suffered in Thursday’s game against Montreal. The nature of the injury was not disclosed but head coach Craig Berube listed the veteran as day-to-day.  Tarasenko has had a nice bounce-back season and leads St. Louis in scoring with 45 points in 44 games.  Tyler Bozak will take Tarasenko’s place in the lineup.

Blues Recall Calle Rosen, Assign Dakota Joshua To Springfield

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  • The Blues announced that they’ve recalled defenseman Calle Rosen from AHL Springfield while sending center Dakota Joshua down. Rosen has played in six games with St. Louis this season but has spent most of the year with the Thunderbirds, collecting 20 points.  As for Joshua, he has five assists in 22 games this season but needed to be sent down to keep the Blues cap-compliant.

Scott Perunovich Sent To AHL On Conditioning Loan

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It’s been a month since Scott Perunovich suffered an injury in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs that landed him on long-term injured reserve, and since the St. Louis Blues are on the road in Canada, he’ll be headed back to the AHL to get his game legs back. Perunovich has been loaned to the Springfield Thunderbirds on a conditioning assignment.

If you wanted to chart out an easy transition from college to the professional ranks, it certainly wouldn’t look like what Perunovich has experienced over the past two years. After winning the Hobey Baker award in 2020 following his junior season with the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Perunovich missed all of 2020-21 because of shoulder surgery. He has dealt with COVID and injury absences this season as well, limiting him to 12 games with the Thunderbirds and 19 more with St. Louis.

In those games with Springfield, the 2018 second-round pick showed just how dominant he could be offensively. Perunovich racked up 20 points in those 12 games, controlling play every time he was on the ice. With this new conditioning loan, he’ll try to get back to that same level before rejoining the Blues at some point down the road.

Once he does return to full health and is ready to play, his addition to the St. Louis lineup could feel just like a trade deadline addition. In his short time in the NHL he recorded incredible possession numbers and racked up six points in 19 games, though was very sheltered when it came to deployment by head coach Craig Berube. Perhaps with a longer run he’ll earn some more trust from the coaching staff and help St. Louis secure their playoff position in the Western Conference.

Scandella Accompanies Blues On Road Trip, Perunovich Doesn't

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  • Blues defenseman Marco Scandella traveled with the team on their road trip and could play at some point in this four-game stretch, notes Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The veteran is dealing with a lower-body injury and missed his first game of the season over the weekend.  Meanwhile, the same can’t be said for fellow blueliner Scott Perunovich as Timmermann notes the youngster won’t be on the trip as he continues to battle an upper-body injury.  At this point, with Perunovich already being out for a month, a short-term stint in the minors seems likely when he is cleared to return.

Marco Scandella Out With Lower-Body Injury

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  • Blues defenseman Marco Scandella has a lower-body injury that will keep him out either day-to-day or week-to-week, notes team reporter Chris Pinkert. The injury was sustained on Thursday against New Jersey.  Scandella had played in every game this season although his 17:29 ATOI is the lowest of any of his full seasons.  With that strange of a designation, it seems reasonable to suggest that he’ll miss at least a couple of games.

Snapshots: Laine, Bozak, Giroux

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Columbus Blue Jackets forward Carson Meyer was supposed to make his NHL debut tonight, but it’ll have to wait for another day. Patrik Laine took warmups with the team and is playing for Columbus in tonight’s game against Buffalo, per team reporter Jeff Svoboda. Laine was dealing with an undisclosed issue in between games, but it turned out that he wouldn’t miss any time. That’s good for the team, as he’s already missed plenty this season. Through just 25 games, he’s still having a very good season in Columbus, posting 12 goals and 24 points. The pending restricted free agent is quietly producing at the highest rate of his NHL career.

More notes from around the league on this Thursday night:

  • Tyler Bozak isn’t a go tonight for the St. Louis Blues, per NHL.com’s Lou Korac. He wasn’t at morning skate, either, so it’s likely an undisclosed injury keeping Bozak out of the lineup. Returning to the Blues on a one-year deal this offseason, the veteran center has three goals and nine points in 37 games while taking on a fourth-line center role. Dakota Joshua will draw in against the New Jersey Devils.
  • Ahead of the trade deadline, rumours around Philadelphia Flyers captain Claude Giroux will continue to swirl. Colorado Hockey Now’s Adrian Dater reports that Flyers scouts are present at tonight’s game between the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning, fuelling the fire that the Avalanche have interest in the prized forward. Giroux is in the final year of his contract and tied for the lead in points among Flyers with 36 points. His leadership and all-around acumen would become immediately invaluable to the Avalanche, presumably back as a winger in the top-six. It would give the already stacked Avalanche forward core options galore, potentially allowing head coach Jared Bednar to have Nathan MacKinnon and captain Gabriel Landeskog on separate lines.

St. Louis Blues Extend Craig Berube

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One St. Louis becomes a coach, another St. Louis extends one. The St. Louis Blues have signed Craig Berube to a three-year extension, taking him through the 2024-25 season. The Blues coach released a short statement on why he chose to stay:

I’ve enjoyed working with (General Manager) Doug Armstrong and (Chairman) Tom Stillman, working with the coaching staff and training staff and all the players we have here. Why would I want to go anywhere else? I love it here.

Berube, a veteran of more than 1,000 games as a player in the NHL, took over the Blues as head coach during the 2018-19 season and led them all the way to a Stanley Cup championship. When he replaced Mike Yeo, the team was 7-9-3 and floundering in the Central Division. They would go 38-19-6 after making the switch, climbing all the way from last place in the NHL to second in the Central, then dispatching the Winnipeg Jets, Dallas Stars, San Jose Sharks, and Boston Bruins en route to the organization’s first Stanley Cup.

Signed to an extension after that year ended, Berube was in the final season of his deal and would have become a free agent without another contract in place. He now has some security and can continue what has been an outstanding job behind the Blues’ bench. In 234 games as head coach of the Blues, he has a 133-71-30 record in the regular season.

Interestingly enough though, Berube’s recent postseason record hasn’t been very good. The Blues were washed out of the first round in six games in 2020 by the Vancouver Canucks, and then swept by the Colorado Avalanche last summer. This year, should they make it again, will be a big test for the group that was so physically dominant in the 2019 playoffs, punishing any opponent that stood in their way. St. Louis currently sits fourth in the Central but securely in the first wild card position.

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