The NHL will be invading the northwest United States with the announcement of a team in Seattle. The timing of it could not be much worse for the St. Louis Blues though.
The NHL officially announced that their 32nd member will be a franchise in Seattle. Unfortunately, the timing of it all does not help and could actually hurt the St. Louis Blues.
While no official announcements have been made as to when the expansion draft will happen or what rules it will embody, one would figure it is going to go down much like when Vegas entered the league a season ago. Seattle is spending $150 million more to enter the league ($650 million overall) than Vegas did, so one can’t imagine them not getting the same advantages the Golden Knights got when picking their team.
However, Blues fans dreaming of dropping some of their unwanted contracts on this Seattle team better brush those thoughts from their mind. The Seattle franchise will not come into existence until the 2021-22 season, meaning there are two offseasons between now and when the expansion draft would likely take place.
The timing could not be much worse for the Blues. Seattle’s desired entry date of 2020-21 would have benefitted the Blues a little better, but the NHL’s worry about rushing improvements to Key Arena led to a push back of the date.
The problem for the Blues becomes they have to start structuring deals and extensions with that 2021-22 date in mind. That could cause some friction with their younger players as they look for extensions.
Currently Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou are under deals that would carry them into that 2021 summer. If you’re the Blues, do you really want to extend them early and be forced to use up protection spots? However, if you do not extend before that summer, you run the risk of losing them, even if it is only a small risk since they would be restricted free agents. Still, the worry of arbitration is an unneeded distraction.
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Dominik Bokk, Klim Kostin and Evan Fitzpatrick are all in the same situation. Who knows what those players turn into by that time, but just the idea that you have to consider their protection status or not becomes aggravating when pondering new deals.
Looking at the present NHL roster, this Seattle situation offers absolutely no relief either. The only potentially unwanted contracts that will still be on the books by that summer are Colton Parayko and David Perron. Some fans might include Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko on that list, but as long as they perform as they have, they are still worth their price despite current fan sentiment against number 91.
Alexander Steen, Jake Allen, Jaden Schwartz and Tyler Bozak all become free agents in that summer. So, it is not as though you could offer any of them up as contract dumps, unless there is an extension between now and then.
Steen’s is a deal that many would love to be rid of. It was questionable when signed, but he had a solid first year under that contract. Unfortunately, age and injury have depleted his defensive abilities and his offensive production has taken a steep drop too. As mentioned, the Seattle situation gives the Blues no respite on that contract. So, they are left to wait it out or try a trade between now and then.
The other potentially distracting thing about the situation is the possibility that the Blues are good again by that time. With the up and coming talent they have, they could be on the verge of contention again by that point. But, you are forced to tinker with your team unnecessarily because of the loss of one or two players. As we saw with Vegas, the players lost are not always the highest priority, but they can still have a large impact on the chemistry of a locker room.
If they prove to be as highly rated as we believe, there is little chance you would lose someone like Thomas or Kyrou. The Blues will have their roster well planned out by then. It just stinks to be on the fan side of the franchise and not really know how it’s all going to play out.
All your unwanted contracts are likely to be off the books by that time anyway, so unless Doug Armstrong or another GM signs more, you don’t have the luxury of jettisoning those. You’ll have to worry about the status of highly touted players coming off their rookie deals too.
We will see how it all plays out in a few years. It just would have been nice for the timeline to be a little earlier so you could get rid of some of those veteran contracts instead of having it be, potentially, a younger guy.