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