St. Louis Blues: 5 Reasons Fans Oversimplify Alex Pietrangelo Situation

Blues must be responsible

One of the big things you see across social media is that the Blues should just pay Pietrangelo. These comments are made from the heart, with no consideration as to how much Pietrangelo might be asking for or what it might do to the team.

The problem with this shortsightedness is it doesn’t take the future into consideration at all. The only consideration is the hear and now.

This particular group of fans doesn’t care that the Blues don’t even have the money to pay Pietrangelo whatever he wants. They think making a trade or buying out a contract is simple with no repercussions.

St. Louis cannot just deal away a bunch of players to afford one. Pietrangelo is one of their better players, but you do still need to have a team to win a championship. The Blues won based on having four lines they could confidently throw out there. Maybe they have the prospects to fill those holes and maybe not, but it’s a risk.

Speaking of risks and prospects, if you give a huge deal to Pietrangelo now, you might not have the money to give younger players raises later. The Blues are scheduled to have restricted free agents in the 2021 offseason, plus Jordan Binnington being a free agent. Colton Parayko is a free agent in 2022 and will likely want more than the $5.5 million he is getting now.

There are not a lot of older players ready to come off the books yet. If you put yourself jammed up against the cap right now, you will have just as little room when those deals come up.

You can, and former NHL players have, made the case that Pietrangelo is better than those players are or will be. Still, you cannot live off prospects forever. Eventually you need to keep guys that have proven themselves in the NHL and you hope that Robert Thomas and Parayko will be those types of players by then or sooner.