St. Louis Blues: 3 Reasons To Keep Alex Pietrangelo

The St. Louis Blues have plenty of reasons to keep their current captain, but perhaps about nine million not to. However, we’ll discuss the three big reasons to keep him around.

The St. Louis Blues have a lot of hard decisions to make during the 2020 NHL offseason. For a team only one year removed from a Stanley Cup championship, there is the potential for a lot of roster upheval.

That is somewhat disappointing because they put a lot of eggs in the basket for a repeat chance and had it derailed as much by the pandemic as anything. Now, any future championships will be fought for by a different group, any way you slice it.

The Blues won’t have their best scorer in Vladimir Tarasenko to begin the 2020-21 season, if at all. They might not have as many as two forwards and possibly one goaltender from the 2019 squad as well, depending on how the salary shifting has to play out.

Of course, the biggest fish to fry is that of Alex Pietrangelo. The captain has made it to his free agent summer without an extension and is looking for a payday.

Nobody truly knows what Pietrangelo wants. We have to base most of our discussion on comparables and the history of the team with the agent.

It is assumed by most that Pietrangelo is willing to go for less than the insane contracts given out to the likes of Erik Karlsson and Drew Doughty, both of which were north of $10 million per season. Many figure he will want something similar to what Roman Josi just signed for, which is just over $9 million.

That’s a good chunk of change, any way you slice it. Complicating matters, Pietrangelo is represented by Newport Sports Management.

They represent both Pietrangelo and Jaden Schwartz and each time those players had contracts come up in the past, negotiations went into training camp. Newport used to represent Brayden Schenn, but he switched agencies and almost immediately after doing so, the Blues worked out an extension with him.

So, needless to say, the dealings with the Newport group and Doug Armstrong could get contentious. That said, the battle over finances doesn’t have to be the only focus.

There are reasons to keep Petro around. Let’s focus on those.