The St. Louis Blues will look to address this in a few areas
Jeremy Rutherford from The Athletic: The St. Louis Blues are working with Pavel Bukhnevich at center, but he needs to improve the draw if he’s going to stay there next season. If he plays center, they’ll save the salary cap space from having to go out and find one during free agency.
Forward Sammy Blais has been in attack since re-acquiring him at the deadline while maintaining his physical game. The Blues can look to re-sign him around the $1 million mark.
NHL rumours: Edmonton Oilers vs Arizona Coyotes vs St. Louis Blues
Alexey Toropchenko will return and likely Nathan Walker will return. Re-signing UFA forward Tyler Pitlick would make sense, but if they sign their top nine forwards, it could push Blais to the fourth line and one Toropchenko, Walker and Pitlick out of the fourth line.
Will the Blues be able to reconfigure some of their blue line? Showdowns for the next 5-7 spots could include Kali Rosen, Robert Bortuzzo, Marco Scandella, Tyler Tucker, Scott Perunovich, Matt Kessel and Dmitry Samorokov. Tucker, Rosen and Perunovich could be the frontrunners.
Keys offseason for the St. Louis Blues
ESPN’s Ryan S Clark and Kristen Shelton: Consider some of the unofficial decisions and priorities of the St. Louis Blues this offseason.
Projected space 2023-24: $4,969,583
2023 draft picks: Three first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh
With the exception of Jordan Kerro and Robert Thomas, the Blues have seven players who make over $4 million and have two or more years on their contracts.
Four of those seven are defensemen – Justin Faulk, Tore Krogh, Nick Leddy and Colton Parayko.
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