With the St. Louis Blues season ending after the first-round knockout against the Vancouver Canucks, all eyes are on Alex Pietrangelo’s future with the former Stanley Cup champion.
Doug Armstrong, general manager of the Blues, has some more work to do to close a deal with his captain who will become an unreserved free agent. However, the team is not concerned about its upcoming status.
“The only thing I hear a lot about … is that time is,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman explained during the Headlines Segment of Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday. “We are still seven weeks away from the free agency time. We know that the interview period is now over and that there haven’t been many negotiations. However, this is a complicated time and situation.
“I think at the end of the day most people think Alex Pietrangelo would like to stick with the St. Louis Blues, and there is time for both sides to get serious and find out.”
Pietrangelo led all St. Louis skaters with an average ice age of 24:11 per night, while he led all blues defenders with 16 goals and 52 points in 70 games. He is in the final year of a seven-year deal where he had a $ 6.5 million cap hit.
Back in October, Friedman reported that the Blues were hoping to sign Pietrangelo so he would land below the $ 9 million plateau. Seven weeks to close a deal, St. Louis doesn’t feel like they are under much pressure to get this done in a rush.
“I have a feeling they’ll believe he’s an unreserved free agent when they see it, but it’s a matter of seven weeks now if they can get that out of that,” Friedman said.
