St. Louis Blues Extend Qualifiers To All But Two RFA’s

The St. Louis Blues have several restricted free agents pending this summer. They did the expected by qualifying extensions to almost every one of them.

The St. Louis Blues did on Monday what almost every single team in the league does right before free agency begins. They extended qualifying offers to almost all of their pending restricted free agents.

St. Louis extended offers to nine players to start the week. The Blues have 11 total RFA’s, so whether those last two are given offers or not remains to be seen.

Robby Fabbri, Joel Edmundson, Dmitrij Jaskin, Oskar Sundqvist, Beau Bennett, Jordan Schmaltz, Petteri Lindbohm, Jordan Binnington and MacKenzie MacEachern were the nine given qualifying offers. With that loose end tied up, what remains to be seen is whether the Blues actually want some of these players back.

You might ask why you would sign the qualifier if you don’t want a player. The answer is to get something in return.

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In the rare case that a team turns in an offer sheet on a restricted free agent, you have the right to match the offer or receive a draft pick compensation in some cases if you let them go. If nothing else, you could also attempt to trade them for a pick too.

Personally, it has been stated here several times that the Jaskin experiment needs to end. Sundqvist seems like a failure of an acquisition as well and did not do enough to earn more time next season. While it is likely the Blues will retain their services, it would not have broken many hearts to not qualify them.

The rest of the offers make sense. You do not want to let Fabbri walk until you know for sure his knee cannot hold up or can deal him off before someone knows for sure.

Bennett and McEachern are question marks. Schmaltz, Linbohm and Binnington still have something to give.

The interesting thing was the names not signed, or not signed yet. No offers were tendered to Tommy Vannelli or Justin Selman.

Selman has been somewhat of a bust, playing in 24 AHL games and parts of two seasons in the ECHL. Perhaps St. Louis will let him go or negotiate a discounted rate if he’s in the ECHL.

Vannelli is somewhat surprising. He also spent a lot of time in the ECHL, after getting some high praise initially. He is still young, but maybe the Blues are ready to cut bait with other defenders passing him up. You can never have too much defensive depth, though, as St. Louis learned in 2017-18.

In the end, it makes sense from a front office perspective to send these qualifying offers. If you can get any compensation for a player, you should.

Next: John Tavares' Free Agency Is Holding Up The Trade Market

From a personal standpoint, though you’re not saving much money, there were just a few names that probably need to exit.  That will probably not be the case.