With the St. Louis Blues‘ season coming to an end with following a first-round exit against the Vancouver Canucks, all eyes are now on Alex Pietrangelo‘s future with the former Stanley Cup champions.
Blues general manager Doug Armstrong has some work to do to get a deal done with his captain who is set to become an unrestricted free agent. However, there isn’t a growing sense of concern from the team about his pending status.
“The one thing I hear a lot about… is there’s time,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman explained during the Headlines segment of Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday. “We’re still seven weeks away from free agency period. We know the interview period is over now, and there hasn’t been a lot of negotiations. But this is a complicated time and a complicated situation.
“I think at the end of the day, most people believe that Alex Pietrangelo would like to remain with the St. Louis Blues, and there is time for both sides to get serious and work this out.”
Pietrangelo led all St. Louis skaters, averaging 24:11 of ice time per night, while also leading 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 to a contract that would see him land below the $9-million plateau. With seven weeks to get a deal done, St. Louis doesn’t feel as if there is a lot of pressure on them to get this done in a hurry.
“I get the sense that they’ll believe that he’s an unrestricted free agent when they see it, but it is a matter of now seven weeks to see if they can hammer this out,” Friedman said.
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