I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. It's just that it seems like usually when a pending UFA is gonna re-sign with his team, you've heard something about it by now. I adopted the Blues as my western conference team when I lived in that area, so I certainly don't want Pietro to leave the team. I'm just saying I see some smoke.
What you're seeing is posturing between Doug Armstrong and Newport reps for Pietrangelo. Pietrangelo himself has no reason to sign when he's putting up a career season and could cash in even more the closer he gets to UFA. No matter how the season ends for the Blues, Pietrangelo himself has no incentive to extend now when the new cap number hasn't been made known yet. Agents and players care very much about making sure they're getting paid the maximum amount so typically that means waiting till all the relevant data that helps shape that final number comes in. I think this is the very easy answer as to what's going on between Pietrangelo's reps and the Blues.
The simple fact is that the team has multiple options available to trim cap and fit Pietrangelo long term. They can trade Bozak and Allen. They unexpectedly lost Bouwmeester as well and have a cheap in house option to replace him in Niko Mikkola, they aren't necessarily roped into extending Scandella for instance. Steen is a buyout candidate after this season which could result in further savings but traditionally the Blues don't utilize buyouts so this option is less likely than moving Bozak and Allen. Dunn could get a bridge deal, this is a likely option available. So there are options and that Faulk extension isn't keeping the Blues from extending their best player.
I realize people are going to continue to speculate but the Blues don't really have their backs to a wall. They can extend Petro and move less critical pieces out including Faulk who has an NTC but without an NMC he can be exposed to Seattle. Even if Seattle doesn't select him the Blues are paying a huge amount of money up front for Faulk so that he's easier to move in the future. I think Armstrong's end game is utilizing Faulk for another Cup run then moving him at an opportune moment sometime outside that window. Just an opinion of course so we'll see how it plays out.
