What’s Next for the St. Louis Blues After Losing Out to the Avalanche?

A tight series that went six games, the St. Louis Blues are now officially out of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs with the Colorado Avalanche moving on to face the Edmonton Oilers in what will be a highly-anticipated matchup of speed and skill with players like Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar taking center stage. For the Blues, at the forefront of their minds might be what comes next.

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ESPN.com’s Kristen Shilton took a look at the immediate future for the St. Louis Blues and focus primarily on players that have pending contract negotiations coming or on players who had asked to be moved. What will happen with Ville Husso? Will he test free agency or stick with the Blues and play 1B with Jordan Binnington? What happened with Vladimir Tarasenko? Does he still want out or did he change his mind? Will David Perron test free agency or look to stick with the Blues, a team he appears to be quite comfortable with?

Ville Husso has the makings of a legitimate starter in the NHL. He might have lost out to Binnington in these playoffs and only gotten another shot because of an injury but he’s quickly becoming a goaltender teams are taking notice of. Does his up and down play this postseason stop teams from pursuing him? Probably not. Shilton believes the team will try to re-sign Husso before he can hit the open market.

Tarasenko’s situation is interesting. It appears he found happiness again playing for the Blues, but no one is confident he’s actually rescinded his trade request from this past offseason and there’s still a chance he wants to be moved. The Blues will need to find out. If he does want to go, he had a fantastic season and only has one more season at a $7.5 million cap. A repeat offseason of no one wanting to go near that contract isn’t likely. There will be a team that shows interest.

As for David Perron, the question will be, does he want his strong season to lead to an easy renegotiation with the Blues? Or, is he planning on using this season to hit what might be the last free agency home run of his NHL career? He’s 34, but he’s still incredibly consistent and if he’s will to sign a three or four-year deal with anyone, there will be teams willing to give him what he wants and immediately insert his 20-plus goals into the lineup. If the Blues want to match, they’ll be able to, but it might come with some cap juggling on the back end.

Next: Brad Marchand’s 6-Month Injury Could Affect Bruins Offseason Plans