On the St. Louis Blues …
Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post Dispatch: Blues GM Doug Armstrong said the reason Vladimir Sobotka returned to Avangard Omsk and not with the Blues this season is because his “out” clause disappeared. When re-doing his three-year, $12 million deal with Omsk in 2014, he unwittingly signed the contract that didn’t have an out clause.
“It was more complicated as I found out when we got into Toronto and I met with him directly,” Armstrong said. “Sort of the Coles Notes’ version, he signed a deal there, the ruble crashed, they renegotiated it and my understanding is they told him ‘No problem, sign this,’ and they took the ‘out’ clause out. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.”
The Blues are remaining in touch with Sobotka, and he’s still trying to get out of his KHL contract. The KHL is reportedly saying if he wants to buy out his deal, it will cost him two-thirds of his $4 million salary – $2.68 million. Sobotka would make $2.75 million in the NHL.
“It’s just an economic situation,” Armstrong said. “There’s a dollar value that they want and there’s a dollar value that he doesn’t want to pay, and if at some point they can find a middle ground …”
The Blues can’t pay for Sobotka’s buyout and they would be fined if they helped.
“That would be circumvention and hefty fines, and quite frankly even if it wasn’t, we didn’t really create this situation,” Armstrong said. “He left. If he wants to get out of it, he can pay the freight.”
The Blues can’t talk contract extension with Sobotka until after January 1st. Depending on when Sobotka can come over, if it’s too late in the season, the Blues may look to toll his contract for one more season.
On the Boston Bruins and Winnipeg Jets …
Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe: Brad Marchand‘s agent considered the contracts of Milan Lucic (six years, $42 million) and Loui Eriksson (six-years, $36 million). Marchand is a better all-around player than both. Bobby Ryan gets $7.25 million a year, and Marchard could have made a case to go that high. To get Marchand at $6.125 million, it had to be for max term.
The Jets don’t appear to be interested in trading Jacob Trouba for draft picks or prospects. They are looking for a left-handed defenseman to play with Dustin Byfuglien or Tyler Myers.
The Bruins would love to add a right-handed defenseman like Trouba, but the Bruins may not have the preferred assets to get him. The Bruins do have Torey Krug, but he’s not the all-around player like Trouba. Krug’s five-on-five game is improving, but he was only used 38 seconds per game on the penalty kill. Trouba averaged two minutes and 43 seconds on the penalty kill.
The Jets would also likely ask for David Pastrnak to go along with Krug. Hard to say if the Bruins would go for that.
Trouba is better than Adam Larsson, who landed the Devils Taylor Hall, but Larsson was already under contract and didn’t ask to be traded. The Jets won’t be able to the equivalent of the Hall trade.