St. Louis Blues Ink Robby Fabbri To One-Year Deal

The St. Louis Blues announced the signing of restricted free agent forward Robby Fabbri to a one-year deal worth $900,000.

Robby Fabbri, a former first-round pick, has had an emotional and challenging start to his career with the St. Louis Blues. However, St. Louis has locked him in for one more year at just under $1 million.

Fabbri had one of the brightest futures for a Blues forward in recent memory. Debuting in the 2015-16 season, Fabbri helped lead the Blues to an eventual defeat in the Western Conference Finals.

During his rookie year, Fabbri played in 72 games for St. Louis and netted 18 goals and 19 assists. His 37 points would rank fifth-best on the team and additionally gave Blues fans a glimpse of a bright future.

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The question for Fabbri now, is whether or not he still has a bright future wearing the note.

Unfortunately for Fabbri and the Blues, the young forward sustained back-to-back torn ACLs starting in the middle of the 2016-17 season.

Since that time, Fabbri has played in just 32 regular-season games. Having never torn any ligaments in my knee, I cannot begin to describe the pain and the emotional suffering that Fabbri had to go through to get himself back to the NHL and contribute at the highest level.

Fabbri is still just 23 years old and could very well be a significant contributor to the Blues Stanley Cup defense next season. We cannot, however, ignore his lack of productivity during the 2018-19 season.

Fabbri, again, failed to stay healthy for a full 82 game season. The young forward played in just 32 games for the Blues in the regular season and added 10 more games played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Ontario native netted just two goals and four assists during the regular season and registered only one goal during the 10 games played in the playoffs.

We occasionally saw that Craig Berube placed him in a variety of top-6 situations when he was in the lineup. However, Fabbri could never seem to take the opportunity and stick in the lineup on a daily basis.

St. Louis has an abundance of forward depth. Having just locked up Zach Sanford and Sammy Blais to deals, the Blues still need to resign Oskar Sundqvist and Ivan Barbasehev.

Add these players to a returning cast of Robert Thomas, Jaden Schwartz, Vladimir Tarasenko and the possibility of younger players getting a chance at some NHL playing time like Klim Kostin and Jordan Kyrou.

If Fabbri wants to continue to stay with the Blues beyond the 2019-20 season, he needs to have a stellar preseason and take advantage of his limited opportunities during the year. The talent is there, though he needs to stay healthy and productive or risk being picked up by Seattle.