grandmaster Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 https://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/2020947 Pending unrestricted free agent Alex Pietrangelo is starting to feel the pressure when it comes to which team he'll play for next season. "It's been a little disappointing that (the St. Louis Blues and I) haven't been able to get a deal done, obviously," Pietrangelo said, according to The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun. "But this is the situation that we're in, we're over three weeks away from Oct. 9 (the beginning of free agency). ... There hasn't been much in terms of progress." The 30-year-old signed a seven-year deal with the Blues in 2013 and has spent his entire career with the club that drafted him fourth overall in 2008. He's served as St. Louis' captain for four seasons. Pietrangelo will be one of the biggest names in free agency if he hits the open market. He expressed his desire to stay in St. Louis but understands it may be difficult for the team to make room for him with just over $5 million in cap space this season. "Yeah, I mean, there's players who have been in one spot their whole career but they change cities," Pietrangelo said. "I've been in the business a long time. I've been around. I've seen a lot of different things. I think you have to be willing to accept the fact that there may be a change one day. Whether it happens or not, it certainly changes your mindset and makes things a little easier if you ever get to that point." He added: "My wife's family is here. We're really close to her family and my family is close with her family. But again, by the same token, it's a short period of time of your life in terms of trying to play the game. You just want to make the right choice for your family and do what's right." Pietrangelo put up 16 goals and 52 points in 70 games during the 2019-20 regular season after helping lead the Blues to a Stanley Cup victory last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandmaster Posted September 14, 2020 Author Share Posted September 14, 2020 Would be a gem in a Canucks uniform. Too bad we have no cap space for the guy. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BPA Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 Meh. He will re-sign with the Blues. His wife is from there. His kids go to school there. Not much sense to uproot the family for an extra million. Guessing he'll get $9M x 5yr. Or $8M x 5yr with full NMC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post aGENT Posted September 14, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 14, 2020 29 minutes ago, grandmaster said: Would be a gem in a Canucks uniform. Too bad we have no cap space for the guy. No Stecher or Tanev would cover a good chunk. We could make the cap space. My concern would be, as good as he is, committing 6 or 7 years at likely around $8m, at age 30 for him 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
86Viking Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 59 minutes ago, grandmaster said: Would be a gem in a Canucks uniform. Too bad we have no cap space for the guy. He would be, very unlikely to happen unfortunately. Wouldn't be worth giving a 7 or 8 year contract to at his age tho for the big bucks. If we didn't have the Giraffe we would have more $ to play with, no we need to try a trade for a middling D who may be able to play top 4. Montour from Buffalo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peaches5 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Canuckster86 said: He would be, very unlikely to happen unfortunately. Wouldn't be worth giving a 7 or 8 year contract to at his age tho for the big bucks. If we didn't have the Giraffe we would have more $ to play with, no we need to try a trade for a middling D who may be able to play top 4. Montour from Buffalo? If 8 million is all he cost? It absolutely would be. You are getting 4-5 years at least of a bonafide number 1 dman on your blue-line. Those guys are incredibly hard to draft let alone sign and then to sign to a very cap friendly contract... almost unheard of. 4-5 years the cap will be back up and signing guys to long term discount contracts they never would have signed will pay huge dividends. Edited September 14, 2020 by peaches5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aGENT Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 15 minutes ago, Canuckster86 said: ...no we need to try a trade for a middling D who may be able to play top 4. Montour from Buffalo? We may simply need to be patient. Edler and Tanev are likely both here for a few more years and we have Juolevi and Rathbone, both of whom have top 4 potential. Adding them may not bring us the #2 D everyone seeks, but it does give us potentially VERY good depth and potentially something close to three solid 'second' pairs. Which is not dissimilar to what we had in 2011 when we were arguably the best team in the league. From there, we might need to wait for guys like Hogs/Podz to actually make someone expendable in trade. Or a UFA to make sense. Or luck out on a later draft pick turning in to one etc, etc. But we will continue to see slow, gradual improvement as guys like Juolevi, Rathbone, Woo etc make the team the next couple years. I know that's probably not the magic cure-all you're looking for, but that's likely reality. And if Virtanen isn't used to dump one of Eriksson/Sutter or to recoup a pick, perhaps he's part of a package for a potential 2nd pair D (hopefully with sneaky-Benning, JT Miller-like 1st pair upside). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coconuts Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) I wonder if the Avs could make it work. They've got a bunch of guys to sign this year and Makar and Landeskog coming up next year, but maybe they'd be willing to let some guys go. Not sure it'd be worth it for them at his age though, but a true #1 is hard to acquire. Edited September 14, 2020 by Coconuts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peaches5 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Coconuts said: I wonder if the Avs could make it work. They've got a bunch of guys to sign this year and Makar and Landeskog coming up next year, but maybe they'd be willing to let some guys go. Not sure it'd be worth it for them at his age though, but a true #1 is hard to acquire. they have 40m in cap and at least another 7.5m coming off the year after so they have plenty of space to sign multiple big free agents to big deals. My bad capspace has already changed their season over 22m in cap space and another 20m coming off the books next year so they have more than enough cap space Edited September 14, 2020 by peaches5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coconuts Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) 4 minutes ago, peaches5 said: they have 40m in cap and at least another 7.5m coming off the year after so they have plenty of space to sign multiple big free agents to big deals. 40m? I thought they were closer to 22m free with guys to bring back If that's the case they should def be after him, he's a huge upgrade and all he'd cost is money Having him would make them the clear favourite out west Edited September 14, 2020 by Coconuts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peaches5 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) 2 minutes ago, Coconuts said: 40m? I thought they were closer to 23m free with guys to bring back If that's the case they should def be after him, he's a huge upgrade and all he'd cost is money Having him would make them the clear favourite out west yea I edited my post didn't realize capspace change their season over to next year already. but still the next 2 years they have 40m+ which is more than enough for them to land some FA or make some trades like OEL. Edited September 14, 2020 by peaches5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandmaster Posted September 14, 2020 Author Share Posted September 14, 2020 1 hour ago, BPA said: Meh. He will re-sign with the Blues. His wife is from there. His kids go to school there. Not much sense to uproot the family for an extra million. Guessing he'll get $9M x 5yr. Or $8M x 5yr with full NMC. Not so sure about that. Looks like talks not looking good in St Louis. You got to also understand some owners, cap or no cap, are bleeding out money because of Covid. Perhaps their owners simply can’t afford anymore salary. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peaches5 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 1 minute ago, grandmaster said: Not so sure about that. Looks like talks not looking good in St Louis. You got to also understand some owners, cap or no cap, are bleeding out money because of Covid. Perhaps their owners simply can’t afford anymore salary. almost everyone on their roster has a NTC they will need to move a pretty difficult contract to be able to offer him 8m+ and they might not want to give him a full nmc which he clearly wants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewbieCanuckFan Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 4 minutes ago, grandmaster said: Not so sure about that. Looks like talks not looking good in St Louis. You got to also understand some owners, cap or no cap, are bleeding out money because of Covid. Perhaps their owners simply can’t afford anymore salary. Looks like they're kind of a bit below average in the league (according to the Forbes team valuations list I saw: https://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/list/#tab:overall Not sure if that list includes to large amount of revenues the Blues got from their successful post-season run last year. If so, I'd expect them to fall further down the list given that we took them out early in the playoffs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coconuts Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 5 minutes ago, peaches5 said: yea I edited my post didn't realize capspace change their season over to next year already. but still the next 2 years they have 40m+ which is more than enough for them to land some FA or make some trades like OEL. OEL is def an option too, he's coming in at just over 8m which is close to what Pietrangelo likely wants. Give or take a mil a year. He's also a LHD whereas Pietrangelo is a RHD. Avs already have Makar and Johnson as their top two RHD, though they could likely move out Johnson if they wanted. Having three expensive RHD that expensive, once Makar is paid, would be quite the luxury. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peaches5 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 3 minutes ago, Coconuts said: OEL is def an option too, he's coming in at just over 8m which is close to what Pietrangelo likely wants. Give or take a mil a year. He's also a LHD whereas Pietrangelo is a RHD. Avs already have Makar and Johnson as their top two RHD, though they could likely move out Johnson if they wanted. Having three expensive RHD that expensive, once Makar is paid, would be quite the luxury. They have Girard too who is a LHD so they could have OEL Makar and the Johnson Girard as their top 4 and then I would go out and sign a guy like Markstrom or Lehner to shore up their goaltending issues and they should be a legit stanley cup threat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandmaster Posted September 14, 2020 Author Share Posted September 14, 2020 5 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said: Looks like they're kind of a bit below average in the league (according to the Forbes team valuations list I saw: https://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/list/#tab:overall Not sure if that list includes to large amount of revenues the Blues got from their successful post-season run last year. If so, I'd expect them to fall further down the list given that we took them out early in the playoffs. Franchise values mean nothing if you’re not selling. Revenue has been drastically cut from the owners pockets yet they are still on the hook for all these million dollar salaries. It will be interesting who will be “bucking up” during free agency. Some of those teams with cap space will not be in play due to being so heavily in the red. We are lucky in Vancouver as FA seems more of a fan than a businessman, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JM_ Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 1 hour ago, aGENT said: No Stecher or Tanev would cover a good chunk. We could make the cap space. My concern would be, as good as he is, committing 6 or 7 years at likely around $8m, at age 30 for him the Blusers just haven't got a good offer on a roster trade yet. They will eventually have to accept a lowball on a decent player and they'l re-sign their captain. Might take until Oct 8th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coconuts Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 1 minute ago, peaches5 said: They have Girard too who is a LHD so they could have OEL Makar and the Johnson Girard as their top 4 and then I would go out and sign a guy like Markstrom or Lehner to shore up their goaltending issues and they should be a legit stanley cup threat. Definitely. It'd cost them assets instead of dollars, but the Avs are one of the teams that could afford it tbh. I'll be surprised if they don't make big moves this offseason, they've got a chance to shore up their team while a bunch of other teams navigate cap trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aGENT Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 14 minutes ago, Robert Long said: the Blusers just haven't got a good offer on a roster trade yet. They will eventually have to accept a lowball on a decent player and they'l re-sign their captain. Might take until Oct 8th. You're likely right/not far off. I expect AP will still be a Blue when it all shakes out. Was just spit balling with grand there 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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