Friday, July 15, 2016

Schwartz Signs For Five



Hey may have the 2016 point totals to be thought of as a fringe player, but St. Louis Blues forward Jaden Schwartz is anything but a fringe player.

The Blues signed one of their key pieces to a new deal on Friday, as the restricted free agent signed on to a 5-year deal, reportedly worth $26.75 million, a round cap hit of $5.35 million per season.

His 2016 season was marred by a fractured ankle injury, which kept him out for more than half of the season, a 49-game absence in total.  In 33 games played, he was able to pick up 8 goals and 22 points, but couldn't quite get into the swing of things, once he had returned from his injury.  Nevertheless, the Blues have identified him as a core piece of their puzzle and that is being reflected in his new contract.

With a Summer to get completely healthy and a training camp to get his legs fully underneath him, one would imagine that he will be back to his 2015 form, where he picked up 63 points in 75 games, if not a little bit better.  My early projection for him will be in the 70-point range, which was pretty close to where I had him last season.

The winger was the last big piece of the Blues' Summer that needed to get taken care of and now they have the framework for a full 23-man roster.  The pool worthy players from last season in green, will be supplemented or joined by the assumed roster players in yellow.  Schwartz and possibly Berglund should be able to jump up to pool worthy in 2017, while the rest provide solid depth.

I have the 23-man roster below coming in at a cap commitment of $69.8 million, which would leave about $3.2 million to play with down the road.  By the trade deadline, that would be a very good number to have.

Forwards Cap Defense Cap Goalies Cap
Vladimir Tarasenko 7.500 Alex Pietrangelo 6.500 Jake Allen 2.350
Paul Stastny 7.000 Jay Bouwmeester 5.400 Carter Hutton 1.145
Alexander Steen 5.800 Kevin Shattenkirk 4.250
Jori Lehtera 4.700 Colton Parayko 0.925
David Perron 3.750
Robby Fabbri 0.894
Jaden Schwartz 5.350 Carl Gunnarsson 2.900
Patrik Berglund 3.700 Joel Edmundson 1.050
Ryan Reaves 1.125 Robert Bortuzzo 1.050
Dmitrij Jaskin 1.000
Kyle Brodziak 0.950
Scottie Upshall 0.900
Magnus Paajarvi 0.700
Landon Ferraro 0.700
Mackenzie MacEachern 0.925 Jordan Schmaltz 0.925 Ville Husso 0.848
Ivan Barbashev 0.742 Thomas Vannelli 0.712 Luke Opilka 0.662
Adam Musil 0.736 Petteri Lindbohm 0.637 Pheonix Copley UD
Samuel Blais 0.703 Dimitri Sergeev 0.619 Jordan Binnington UD
Conner Bleackley 0.700 Morgan Ellis 0.575
Justin Selman 0.678 Chris Butler 0.600
Zach Pochiro 0.663 Brad Hunt 0.575
Ty Rattie 0.650
Kenny Agostino 0.625
Andrew Agozzino 0.600
Jacob Doty 0.575
Wade Megan 0.575
Alex Friesen 0.575

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins injured/retired cap hits, in the system

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