After spending the summer celebrating their first-ever Stanley Cup victory, the St. Louis Blues have spent the past few weeks sending a message to the league that they’re ready for a repeat.
Locking up forward Brayden Schenn to an eight-year extension Friday was a big part of that message.
“We’ve been a really competitive team the last eight years and bringing in (Justin) Faulk and signing Schenn now, really what I want to do is I want to support Tarasenko, I want to support Ryan O’Reilly, I want to support (Jaden) Schwartz, I want to support (Colton) Parayko — guys that are in that part of their career where they can keep winning,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said during an appearance on Hockey Central on Friday. “And to do that, you have to have a partnership with the players in the sense that the AAV might be a little bit less but you get a little bit more term. Schenner falls right into that group.”
Schenn’s $52-million deal, which kicks in at the start of next season, carries a $6.5-million cap hit — a modest raise from his current $5.125-million AAV and likely less money than he could’ve earned as a UFA had he opted to ride out the final year of his four-year pact that will expire on July 1, especially considering the demand for versatile centres on the open market.
“He’s a player that can play centre ice on the top line or he can play left wing as he did last year with O’Reilly when necessary. A versatile player, 28 years old,” said Armstrong.
Schenn has ranked in the Blues’ top three in points over his two seasons in St. Louis since being acquired via trade from the Philadelphia Flyers. The Saskatoon native led the team in 2017-18 with a career-high 70 points and ranked third in 2018-19 before stepping up in big-game moments to get the Blues to the Cup.
Will Schenn’s cap hit look heavy in 2027-28, at 36 years old? Perhaps, but that’s a small price to pay to keep a winning core locked up. Besides, it won’t look so bad if that 36-year-old has a few more Stanley Cup rings on his fingers.
“Eight years is a long time, I’m not going to question that,” Armstrong added. “But we think that our players have earned the right, and it’s the responsibility of the ownership group and the management group to support that.”
This is not a team that won the Cup on the sticks of a bunch of aging veteran stars making a last-ditch effort. Armstrong found the winning recipe, sans deadline rentals, with last spring’s win hammering home the importance of chemistry and depth — their opponents in Boston are a testament to that, too. Now, this fall sees Armstrong ice a roster almost identical to the one that hoisted the Cup.
Schenn’s deal means the club’s top three forwards are locked up for the foreseeable future, with Vladimir Tarasenko and O’Reilly — both coming in at $7.5 million per season — under contract through 2022-23.
“There’s a sense in that room that there’s a belief there and there’s a belief there for the next five, six, seven years that we should be competitive — and Schenner’s a big part of that,” said Armstrong, who earlier this summer negotiated a two-year, $8.8-million bridge deal for goaltender Jordan Binnington, ensuring continuity in net without breaking the budget.
While the picture on offence remains largely the same, there’s a new face on the blue line — and plenty of questions going forward, too.
Ten days prior to re-signing Schenn, Armstrong made a splash on the trade market by acquiring star defenceman Justin Faulk from the Carolina Hurricanes and immediately making him feel right at home with a seven-year, $45.5 million extension that will see him remain in the midwest through 2026-27.
In Faulk, the reigning Cup champs get a strong skater in the prime of his career who can log big minutes, drive special teams, and provide stability on the blue line no matter who he’s paired with.
“That age that he’s in right now, we foresee him being a big part of our team as we try to stay competitive with the top teams in the league,” Armstrong said of the 27-year-old three-time All-Star.
Faulk’s arrival raised questions about where things stand with captain and pending UFA Alex Pietrangelo. In last week’s home opener, it meant setting the captain up for a power-play goal in the first frame of the game — the first of many, surely, considering the strength of St. Louis’ special teams this year.
But what does Faulk’s deal mean for Pietrangelo’s future with the club?
“Really, nothing, in the sense that he’s our captain, he’s a player that we would hope to be able to keep here long-term,” Armstrong said, before referencing a phrase learned from former Dallas Stars GM Bob Gainey, with whom he worked for several years:
“How do you get all the horses back in the barn? You get them in one at a time,” he said.
“This time we got Schenner back in and now we’re going to have to, over the next seven months, corral Alex and get him back in the barn. That’s our goal, but we do that behind the scenes,” Armstrong continued.
Getting Pietrangelo under contract will mean a lot of cap maneuvering. Even simply working Faulk’s new $6.5-million AAV will require some finesse, and Pietrangelo will surely cost more than that.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported during Saturday’s Headlines segment on Hockey Night in Canada that Armstrong is expected to meet with Pietrangelo’s agents at Newport while in Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs on Monday.
“It is believed the Blues want him around Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s number, which is eight (years) times $8.25 million,” Friedman said. “But, if Pietrangelo was to go to unrestricted free agency, he’d do very well.”
The only obvious upcoming cap relief will be Jay Bouwmeester‘s $3.25 million off the books after this season, with Bozak and Steen’s contracts expiring one year after that.
Pietrangelo isn’t the only player eligible for an extension — defenceman Vince Dunn and forwards Robby Fabbri and Sammy Blais will be RFAs on July 1 — but he is the biggest.
“He’s a huge part of why we won last year,” Armstrong said of Pietrangelo. “He’s been here, he’s our captain, he’s a guy that we hope to get signed long-term but you can’t force these things.”
Pietrangelo, 29, logged a team-leading 25:45 of ice time per game through the playoffs and led all Blues defencemen in scoring with three goals and 16 assists.
“Whether it happens tomorrow or it happens next June or even July, you just have to stay patient as part of the process,” he said. “We’re just going to keep working at it underneath the current.”
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