St. Louis Blues: What Will Dunn’s Next Contract Look Like?

Much of the St. Louis Blues free agency focus has been on their captain. All the while, little attention has been paid to certain restricted free agent on the blue line.

The St. Louis Blues are clearly focused on trying to keep Alex Pietrangelo, but we cannot overlook the fact that Vince Dunn‘s rookie contract is about to expire too. The team had a similar situation come up a few seasons ago with Colton Parayko.

Parayko’s entry-level contract ended and there was a lot of speculation on whether the Blues would sign him to a short bridge contract or a full-blown extension. He ended up signing for five years and $5.5 million per year.

Parayko’s rookie contract ended after his age-23 season, playing in 160 games. In those two seasons, he posted 68 points, a plus-35, averaged 20:18 per night, and 15.5 point shares.

More from Editorials

Dunn played in more NHL games on his rookie deal but performed at a lower level than his 6-6 counterpart. Since his rookie campaign in 2017-18, he has posted 82 points, a plus-30, and 11.6 point shares for his team.

While these two situations may have similar outcomes, it is not likely that Dunn will be able to land anything north of $5 million AAV from the Blues. As of right now, St. Louis has already committed roughly $78.5 million next season. If the salary cap remains the same, the Blues will not have much more than $3 million of leeway.

As a restricted free agent, the Blues will have to send Dunn a qualifying offer. However, I would imagine that they prefer to lock up the talented, young defenseman. Unfortunately, this would also greatly hinder Pietrangelo’s chances of coming back.

If the Blues chose the route of a contract extension, the expected offer should be right around $4 to $4.5 million per season for 4-5 years. They have already had several core players from last season’s Stanley Cup team locked up for the long haul and they probably want to keep Vince here for the same amount of time.

There is a chance that he could ask for more money based on his production this season. Taking a look around at other players who had a similar production level this year, Morgan Rielly (27 points) is making $5 million, Matt Dumba (24 points) sits at $6 million, and Travis Sanheim (25 points) earns $3,250,000.

All in all, the Blues will either sign Dunn to a one-year contract worth $3-$3.5 million to buy some more time for the salary cap to go up or they will decide to give him a 3-5 year extension. If they opt to offer that extension, it will probably cost them more than $4 million annually.

Next. Pietrangelo’s Options Might Be Thin. dark

There may be some argument to whether he is worth more than $4 million at this point in his career. In my opinion, it would be a small price to pay to keep as much of the band together as possible.

Home/Editorials