What does the future hold for these players and their new contracts?
By Mo Hussain, Sports Reporter
Aside from what mainly happened with the Canucks this off-season, there are plenty of other big moves that teams made during this yearâs free agent season. Here are three big free agent moves from this yearâs offseason that shifted a bit of the hockey landscape.
Blues make some changes
The 2019 Stanley cup champions have had quite an interesting past couple of months. In addition to losing in the first round of the playoffs, the team just went through a massive change with the departure of former captain Alex Pietrangelo, and the arrival of Torey Krug.
Krug, who picked up 49 points with the Boston Bruins last year, was signed for $45,500,000 over the course of seven years and will join Justin Faulk and Colton Parayko on St. Louisâ blue line. Meanwhile, Pietrangelo, who picked up 52 points with the Blues, agreed to an eight-year $61,600,000 deal with the Vegas Golden Knights.
Pietrangeloâs decision to depart from St. Louis wasnât an easy one; âIt wasnât as easy as maybe some people think it was for us. When you have your roots tied here and youâve been here for so long, itâs definitely a difficult decision. But I tried to take as much emotion out of it as I could,â said Pietrangelo in an interview on NHL.com. It will be interesting to see how both the Blues and Pietrangelo will fare without each other this upcoming season.
One last run
After 15 seasons with the San Jose Sharks, veteran Joe Thornton has decided to take his talents back to the eastern conference. Thornton, who was last a part of the eastern conference playing for the Boston Bruins, agreed to sign a one-year $700,000 contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs. âThis team is you know a very very good team and I need to win a Stanley cup and I think this is a great team that can do that,â said Thronton to Mike Zeisberger of NHL.com in a media call.
Throughout his career, Thornton has accomplished pretty much everything there is in the hockey world. This includes a 2010 Olympic gold medal, Hart Memorial trophy, art ross trophy, and he reached the Stanley Cup finals back in 2016.
However, the 41-year-old has yet to capture the Stanley Cup, and it will be interesting to see if this move to Toronto will help accomplish that.
Interesting move for Buffalo
This offseason also saw the Buffalo Sabres agree to sign former Hart Memorial trophy winner Taylor Hall to a one-year $8,000,000 contract. Hall will join the Sabres with the hopes of helping bring them back into a competitive playoff contender.
âEven before free agency, Buffalo was a place that I told my agent Darren Ferris that I would think about playing there. It would be something that I think would be enjoyable and Iâm really glad that weâre here,â said Hall in a TSN video call.
Hall, who picked up a combined 52 points in 65 games playing for both the New Jersey Devils and the Arizona Coyotes, said that the decision to only sign for one year can help keep his options open moving forward.
âIt went from wanting to get a six or seven-year contract to thinking hey maybe a one-year deal might be best for me financially and personally. And then we can see what the landscape of the NHL and really the whole US and Canada looks like after that,â said Hall in the same video.
