Confirmed with Link: Scandella signs 4 year deal ($3.275m AAV)

[Blueston]

This is making for an interesting discussion about next year's cap, so I thought I would do a quick reset here. (All cap info per CapFriendly.com)

Right now, we have 13 forwards under contract for a total of $50,477,500 next season. Add one of MacEachern or De La Rose to that at $750,000 and you're at a full forward roster of 14 with $51,227,500 spent.

We now have 5 defensemen under contract for next season at a total of $18,400,000. If you figure Dunn at $1,500,000 (borrowing from the Blais discussion that this is the Blues Bridge Deal Blueprint), even if it is just for one year, and Petro at $8,000,000 that puts you at $27,900,000 for a full roster of 7 defensemen.

At goalie, Binnington and Allen currently cost $8,750,000. If you figure that they move out Allen's $4,350,000 for futures and replace him with Husso at $750,000 that leaves you at $5,150,000 for your two goalies.

Total Cap Hit: $84,277,500

I don't really think the cap is going to go up much, if at all, but I certainly don't think it is going to go up by $3M after the developments of the last two months. That means someone has to go, but who? Personally, I think there is no way we start the season next season (whenever that may be) with BOTH Mikkola and Perunovich in the AHL. That means one of the current D has to go, but again who? Moving Gunnarsson or Bortuzzo makes the most the most sense from a quality of play standpoint, but it doesn't really help the financial side of things because it only saves $400,000-$1,000,000 on the cap. Do we forgo signing Petro? Do we move Faulk or Parayko? Do we package 4 or 41 with a forward like Bozak or Schwartz to clear more room? It will be really interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months.

Cap is likely to be flat. So you still need to pare about $3mm more.

 

[Mike Liut]

Really like Scandella. Love the signing.

Nothing personal, but Allen and Bozak need to go to help sign Petro. And Steen being off the books in another year will help too.

 

[simon IC]

I love Scandella, but this move has me really nervous about Pietrangelo. Damn that Faulk deal! It keeps looking worse and worse.

 

[BlueKnight]

I like Scandella, he fits the team like a glove, I'm glad to see him sign, And it was nice to see some good news for me after the day i had. I love the signing. Now just need to get Petro signed.

 

[Playgloria]

Does anyone know about how the expansion draft really works? If we can give incentives to Seattle (like Pittsburgh did with Fleury to Vegas) to take on Faulk's contract in the expansion draft his money will come off the books after next season. Does this sound realistic or a pipe dream? I honestly don't know enough about how that works

 

[Stealth JD]

Yikes. Like Scandella at that rate but #27 should be the priority over Blais, Scandella or anyone else.

 

[Mike Liut]

Yikes. Like Scandella at that rate but #27 should be the priority over Blais, Scandella or anyone else.

We can’t neglect other players while waiting on Petro. If he wants to sign, they’ll figure it out.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Its more helpful to have the cost certainty with regard to the Pietro negotiation. Some salary has to move out, but there are candidates for doing that. Bozak (sorry to see him go) and Allen (has positive trade value...surprise!) are the two most likely candidates. Gunnarsson is another possibility since Perunovich or Mikkola could hold down a bottom pairing spot cheaper. I think Armstrong will squeeze it in. Pietro may not get quite the premium he was expecting if the Cap had gone up as much as expected. I also wonder how many other potential suitors are just as messed up with the flat Cap (assuming) as the Blues, or moreso.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

To be honest, I don’t get why everyone is freaking out over Petro not being able to be signed.

I looked at CapFriendly for some fun, and if we moved Schwartz(one year til UFA), Bozak, Allen, Steen(compliance buyout), and Gunnarsson...we could sign both Pietrangelo($8.5 mil) AND Taylor Hall($9 mil prove it deal that’s rumored)...with over a million in cap to spare with a flat cap.

I also had Khaira’s $1.2 mil cap hit coming back as a 4th line/extra guy in said Bozak deal.


That roster was

Schenn-O’Reilly-Perron
Hall-Thomas-Tarasenko
Sanford-Sundqvist-Kyrou
Blais-Barbashev-Kostin
Khaira, MacEachern

Dunn($3 mil bridge)-Pietrangelo
Scandella-Parayko
Mikkola/Perunovich-Faulk
Bortuzzo

Binnington
Husso

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Its more helpful to have the cost certainty with regard to the Pietro negotiation. Some salary has to move out, but there are candidates for doing that. Bozak (sorry to see him go) and Allen (has positive trade value...surprise!) are the two most likely candidates. Gunnarsson is another possibility since Perunovich or Mikkola could hold down a bottom pairing spot cheaper. I think Armstrong will squeeze it in. Pietro may not get quite the premium he was expecting if the Cap had gone up as much as expected. I also wonder how many other potential suitors are just as messed up with the flat Cap (assuming) as the Blues, or moreso.

 

[Meatball]

Great signing and I'm glad to see you all doing well.

Love you guys, love Marco, love the signing!

 

[MissouriMook]

For all the abuse that Army took before some of his recent deals, he has never been one to refuse to own and correct his mistakes. If you take the perspective that Faulk hasn’t worked out as we hoped and Scandella worked out better, perhaps the two are related in that the Scandella extension allows Army to move Faulk to free up money for Petro without leaving a void at LD with the pending JBo retirement. Just a thought.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I think about how we'd replace Petro if he walks. Parayko isn't it. He's good, yes - but if you shuffle up Parayko, now you need another Parayko. Perunovich isn't it, unless you really think he's a wunderkind a la Karlsson or Phaneuf or anyone else who's come in as a rookie and just lit it up. There's no one close on the FA market (you really think Tyson Barrie is like Parayko?) and I don't see a top-25 defenseman in the league that we're going to swing a deal for without it really hurting.

That Faulk deal is just a killer for us. It's going to haunt us even more when Parayko needs a new deal. If Faulk is worth 6.5x7, Parayko is going to be every bit of 7.5x7 and probably more given that he's going to be UFA about the time everything has recovered - and replacing him on top of having to replace a Pietrangelo if we have to go that route is going to be one hell of a price to pay, unless Perunovich is everything some people hope he is.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

For all the abuse that Army took before some of his recent deals, he has never been one to refuse to own and correct his mistakes. If you take the perspective that Faulk hasn’t worked out as we hoped and Scandella worked out better, perhaps the two are related in that the Scandella extension allows Army to move Faulk to free up money for Petro without leaving a void at LD with the pending JBo retirement. Just a thought.

I don't think that's what he's going to do, but if that is the plan he may need to add a bit of a sweetener to move Faulk. I wouldn't have a problem if he had to do that to free the salary to re-sign Pietro and we see an NHL-ready (speculative) Perunavich slide in there. It would be an admission of a mistake, but it would not hurt the Cup competitiveness for the next 2-3 years.

 

[stl76]

Looking at this deal by itself: I love it.

Kind of sucks giving up the extra pick tho.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Does anyone know about how the expansion draft really works? If we can give incentives to Seattle (like Pittsburgh did with Fleury to Vegas) to take on Faulk's contract in the expansion draft his money will come off the books after next season. Does this sound realistic or a pipe dream? I honestly don't know enough about how that works

It will function identically to the Vegas expansion draft

 

[TK 421]

Another extension that isn't Petro, yippee skippee. Also nothing personal Faulk but I really don't like you.

 

[Robb_K]

Its more helpful to have the cost certainty with regard to the Pietro negotiation. Some salary has to move out, but there are candidates for doing that. Bozak (sorry to see him go) and Allen (has positive trade value...surprise!) are the two most likely candidates. Gunnarsson is another possibility since Perunovich or Mikkola could hold down a bottom pairing spot cheaper. I think Armstrong will squeeze it in. Pietro may not get quite the premium he was expecting if the Cap had gone up as much as expected. I also wonder how many other potential suitors are just as messed up with the flat Cap (assuming) as the Blues, or moreso.

I agree with all this. I'm glad to see Scandella back, and I'm confident Pietrangelo will be back in the fold.

 

[mynamejeff420]

Rough deal for the Blues and might mean that they won't have enough space to sign Pietrangelo. Seems like a bad deal to me, even if the AAV isn't all that high for Scandella.

Between this deal and Faulk's contract the Blues now have almost $10m invested in a shitty defensemen. Instead of spending that money on your captain, who also just so happens to be one of the best defensemen in the league, it looks like the Blues will be losing Pietrangelo due to all that (essentially) dead money. Really seems like the Blues are trying to ensure they don't win a cup again.

 

[simon IC]

For all the abuse that Army took before some of his recent deals, he has never been one to refuse to own and correct his mistakes. If you take the perspective that Faulk hasn’t worked out as we hoped and Scandella worked out better, perhaps the two are related in that the Scandella extension allows Army to move Faulk to free up money for Petro without leaving a void at LD with the pending JBo retirement. Just a thought.

I have a gut feeling this could be in the works. Or, it's just wishful thinking on my part. Faulk would have to waive his NTC, but perhaps a chat with Armstrong could persuade him. Maybe give him a choice in where he goes?

 

[TheDizee]

He was a really great fit so aslong as he performs like that this will be a good sign

 

[Alklha]

We're completely blind when we're speculating on the cap for next season.

There are plans that could see a modest cap rise and escrow being at a very manageable level, but it's difficult to hammer those out when there is no certainty on when the current situation will end and whether next season will be a normal 82 game season.

It's the lack of certainty that's the issue for me. I don't believe that we'll see the cap drop, but the cap potentially remaining the same would make it extremely difficult to create cap space. That's why spending money on secondary players now is concerning when it comes to extending Pietrangelo.

But then there is always the possibility that Armstrong has the framework of a significant trade agreed for when the season ends to create cap space.

 

[BlueDream]

Rough deal for the Blues and might mean that they won't have enough space to sign Pietrangelo. Seems like a bad deal to me, even if the AAV isn't all that high for Scandella.

Between this deal and Faulk's contract the Blues now have almost $10m invested in a shitty defensemen. Instead of spending that money on your captain, who also just so happens to be one of the best defensemen in the league, it looks like the Blues will be losing Pietrangelo due to all that (essentially) dead money. Really seems like the Blues are trying to ensure they don't win a cup again.

No matter what you think about the contracts, neither defenseman is “shitty” so your point sucks.

 

[Klank Loves You]

Maybe a year longer than ideal. I'm OK with $ amount. Army has earned my trust. Either he'll re-sign Pietro, or Pietro never planned on staying. This fits the plan.

 

[SaintLouHaintBlue]

Why does everyone keep complaining about Faulk?
He hasn't played in St. Louis since 2006, last time I checked the Rams are no longer in town.