The St. Louis Blues Have Signed Joel Edmundson To A One-Year Deal, Avoiding Arbitration
The Blues have resigned defenseman Joel Edmundson to a one-year contract worth around 3 million, avoiding arbitration. Edmundson played in 69 games each of the last two seasons and was also invited to play for Team Canada at the World Championships.
Edmundson is still two years away from being eligible to be a UFA, so it looks like he will be a restricted free agent again next season. And in two years, he is going to get PAID. We actually had a player we interviewed this past week in Kelowna say that Edmundson is one of, if not the toughest, players to play against in the NHL. Guy has a huge net front presence as a defenseman, is a tough bastard, and can eat minutes.
Edmundson is coming off of a two-year, $2.1m deal that had an AAV of $1.05m. For a guy who is averaging around 20+ minutes a night, that’s a steal. The one-year, $3m deal is a steal as well. We are talking about a top-4 defenseman, under contract for under $3.5m per season? That is the definition of a steal.
The Summer of St. Louis continues. I love all the Blues moves this summer. They added a legit top center in Ryan O’Reilly, then also added Pat Maroon, Tyler Bozak and David Perron. You added all of that to a team that finished the season with 94 points and only missed the playoffs by a single point.
Their top-9 could look something like:
Schwartz – Schenn – Tarasenko
Maroon – O’Reilly – Steen
Fabbri – Bozak – Perron
Not too bad. Actually, pretty fucking good. Add Edmundson, Parayko and oh ya Alex Pietrangelo on the back end too. Talk about being a wagon. I like the Blues a lot heading into next year. 5Dimes has the Blues as +3500 next season to win the cup. Ton of value there. I think the season rides on Jake Allen. Obviously losing backup tendy Carter Hutton to Buffalo is a big loss, but hopefully Chad Johnson can fill the backup goalie void left by Hutton.
Joel Edmundson also joins us on Spittin’ Chiclets this week to discuss the offseason the Blues had, his contract, some off-ice stuff & a ton more. Subscribe before it drops.