The St. Louis Blues have decisions to make regarding contracts every offseason, some bigger than others. However, they need look no further than baseball to see why spending too much won’t work for them.
As far as the sport of hockey goes, the St. Louis Blues have plenty of examples of why not to overspend. The Chicago Blackhawks won three Stanley Cups in short order, but are paying for it now with a small group earning the vast majority of their cap hit.
However, Major League Baseball and it’s gluttony of large contracts provides further proof of why the Blues current model needs to stay their model.
The interesting thing about fans, if you can lump humanity into one large group like that, is the shortsightedness and short term memory we all have regarding our teams. We want them to win now and sometimes win at all costs.
Check any social media post regarding a high profile player’s contract and you will, undoubtedly, find plenty of people saying pay him whatever he wants. Back the truck full of money up to their house, for lack of a better term.
The most recent example is Alex Pietrangelo. Just a short time before 2018-19, fans were ready to trade him for nothing – another concept I have yet to grasp. He was worthless and not fitting to wear the captain’s “C” on his chest. Many said he was the weakest leader they had ever seen don the Blues sweater.
What a difference a Stanley Cup can make. Now, the majority voice has swung the other direction and fans cannot fathom losing Petro to free agency, even if the price tag is over $10 million per season.
It is not their money being spent. Why should it bother the fans if the only captain in team history to win a Stanley Cup gets paid bookoo bucks?
The reason it should bother them is because hockey is not like other sports. The Blues are not like other franchises.
Circling back to the baseball analogy, the New York Yankees just got hit with the terrible news that their starting pitcher, Luis Severino, would have season ending surgery. The Bronx Bombers will also be without slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who suffered a calf injury.
The Yankees might still be a good team despite those injuries because they are the Yankees and because it is MLB. There is a luxury tax, but if the Yankees think they have a shot at winning, all they need do is go out and acquire new pieces. Money is not as much of an object.
They can absorb a $325 million dollar contract with the player only playing in 18 games in 2019 because they were loaded elsewhere and could buy more if they needed. Teams like the Blues or their neighbors, the St. Louis Cardinals cannot have that hit.
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Imagine the Cardinals paid the same contract to Stanton and he only played 18 games for them. The Cardinals would not have the ability to make moves to improve the team in Stanton’s absence and would not have the players in place to provide his lost potential production.
On the ice, things are similar. For hypothetical reasons, let us assume the Blues found a way to give Pietrangelo or any player that big $10-plus million contract.
Doug Armstrong is a magician. He finds a way to sneak that in.
Petro, or whomever this hypothetical player is, gets hurt. What do you do to replace that?
If it is a season ending injury, you could pick up a decent player if you have trade assets. However, do you have assets or did you let some of those walk to afford the big contract?
Even if you have the assets, the Blues would likely be in a scenario like 2019-20. Even if they used all their long term injury relief funds, all they could do is pick up a rental since that money comes back onto the books the next season.
If it is not a season ending injury, but still missing the bulk of the year, the team is in even more trouble. When you’re paying someone that much, there is almost no way to replace that because there is no financial flexibility within the cap.
The Blues have been successful because they have not given out those deals. They easily could have overpaid and handed Vladimir Tarasenko a huge-money deal when he was a free agent. That would have hamstrung many of their current efforts.
Tarasenko is able to be “replaced” during his current long-term injury because his salary allowed the team to have enough depth players on the roster to make up for his lost production. Add two, three, maybe even four million to the cap hit for one player and you lose the ability to have third and fourth line guys that can step up into top-six roles for extended periods.
For an extreme example, look to the Montreal Canadiens. Montreal’s success or failure for several years has hinged on Carey Price being healthy because they are paying him $10.5 million per season.
So many fans rail on the Blues for having two goaltenders that earn less than $9 million combined. However, if Jordan Binnington got hurt, the Blues don’t have a huge dropoff to put a former starter in net with Jake Allen.
Montreal does not have that luxury. By paying one player that much, they have to go cheap at other positions, most notably backup goaltender in this case. Not too long ago, the Canadiens set the record for best start to a season, but Price got hurt and they missed the playoffs because they could not afford a good backup.
The Blues are not in a situation like the Yankees. They cannot give a big-money deal out, have a player potentially get hurt and just absorb it like nobody’s business.
People will point to 2019-20 as an example of the next man up mentality, but again they have the budget to have that depth. That disappears when you start paying guys the amounts given to Erik Karlsson or Patrick Kane or even Connor McDavid.
Pittsburgh is the model the Blues want to follow. Get your best players taken care of, but convince them that winning will earn them money too so they have less a cap hit.
Sidney Crosby, long considered the best in the NHL or at least top two, has never had a cap hit above $8.7 million. Think of how long Pittsburgh has been contenders for championships now, mainly because they had the financial freedom to absorb injuries to someone as talented as Crosby.
If Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had cap hits north of $10 million, the Penguins likely don’t have the ability to have Phil Kessel on their championship teams. They probably can’t afford to pick up a suddenly resurgent Miroslav Stan for the 2008-09 Cup run.
As fans, we never want to see our favorites go. However, this franchise cannot afford to pay them the biggest money out there either.
The Blues are built on depth more than star power. Hopefully, they can work out a structured contract with the likes of Alex Pietrangelo or Colton Parayko in the future, because if the market demands they get over $10 million then the Blues will need to let them pass.