Former Blues Defenseman Marco Scandella Retires After 14 Seasons

This past Sunday, a former St. Louis Blues defenseman decided to hang up his skates after 14 years in the NHL with three different franchises. 34-year-old Marco Scandella announced his retirement after failing to negotiate a contract for the 2024/25 season, which would've been his fifth in St. Louis after being dealt from his hometown Montreal Canadiens back in the 2019/20 campaign, where he'd split that season simultaneously playing for the Buffalo Sabres.

Scandella started his NHL career with the Blues' rival Minnesota Wild in 2010/11, where he'd play seven total seasons, racking up 373 games with 27 goals and 62 assists for 89 points. Scandella then joined the Sabres for the next three seasons, totaling 176 games with 14 goals and 30 assists for 44 points.

After a one-off with his hometown Canadiens in the middle of the 2019/20 season, Scandella scored a goal and two assists in 20 games. The veteran defenseman joined the Blues ahead of the 2020/21 season, where he'd total nine goals and 25 assists in 215 games before his retirement as the 2024/25 season gets underway.

Scandella's career totals are 784 games played with 51 goals and 119 assists for 170 pts, while managing almost 300 career penalty minutes. A regular season average places him at scoring five goals and 12 assists for 17 points across Scandella's 14-year career.

Before the 2024/25 season, Scandella was an unrestricted free agent looking for a contract ahead of this season but never did land one, especially given St. Louis' overall quietness in this offseason's free agency day. Scandella's career was at least successful in its earliest days, as with Minnesota, he became one of the Wild's top defensemen, alongside longtime friend Jared Spurgeon, who has played his entire 15-year NHL career up in the North Star State. Scandella's offense prowess also helped the Wild pull off a couple of major postseason upsets, namely in the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons against the top seeds of Colorado and St. Louis.

After leaving Minnesota, Scandella bounced around a couple of other teams in Buffalo and Montreal before eventually landing in St. Louis during the middle of a global pandemic in 2020. The Sabres and Canadiens stints didn't help the defenseman's numbers, especially given that the Montreal pit stop was Scandella's third trade in that many seasons since 2017/18, his first with Buffalo.

Scandella went to St. Louis after the Blues needed a fresh start on defense, with fellow veteran Jay Bouwmeester missing considerable time after a scary in-game medical emergency. Scandella was a valuable part of the Blues' defense, but before this season, St. Louis could not allocate enough cap space to resign him, putting him back on the market for a fourth time.

Scandella's career is decent enough for a defenseman of his skill level, his greatest strengths being his towering 6'3" 212-pound presence on the ice and the fun fact that his family is rather eccentric. Marco himself is trilingual and fluent in English, Italian, and French. Scandella's father Francesco emigrated from Italy and his older brother Giulio played for the Italian national team from 2004-2018 while jumping between various European squads.

Marco was originally a 2nd round draft choice by Minnesota in the 2010 Entry Draft, selected from the QMJHL's Val-dOr Foreurs, making his NHL debut with the Wild on November 12, 2010, and scored his first NHL goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets on October 8, 2011.