ST. LOUIS (AP) — The St. Louis Blues and Brandon Saad have agreed to mutually terminate the remainder of his contract, which would make him a free agent and able to sign with any team in the NHL.
The Blues announced they are putting the veteran forward on unconditional waivers on Thursday. Saad cleared regular waivers Wednesday when he was unclaimed by the NHL’s other 31 teams, any of whom would have had to take on his current deal that carries a $4.5 million salary cap hit through next season.
Saad has been held without a goal in 40 of his 43 games this season and has a total of 16 points. According to the tracking site PuckPedia, he is forgoing roughly $5.4 million to become a free agent rather than report to the minors.
St. Louis initially said its intent was to assign the 32-year-old to Springfield of the American Hockey League if he cleared. General manager Doug Armstrong implied that he tried to trade Saad before putting him on waivers.
“Obviously the production’s not there," Armstrong said Tuesday. “Right now the cap is tight, and obviously statistically he’s not having a great year and he’s got another year left. If we could find a match, we would try.”
Armstrong specifically referred to younger forward Alexandre Texier as one of the players he would like to see more of as a reason for waiving Saad.
The Blues are languishing on the edge of the Western Conference playoff race past the midway point of the season, five points back of the second and final wild-card spot. Armstrong made his first big move in November by firing Drew Bannister 22 games into the season and hiring Jim Montgomery as his replacement.
St. Louis has gone 14-12-3 with Montgomery behind the bench. The organization is trying to build for the future but also attempt to win now, and there are plenty of questions about why that is not happening.
“I don’t know why our home record is under .500,” Armstrong said. “I don’t know why we didn’t embrace the opportunity of a three-game homestand to make hay. But my job is to not react to it but to observe it and then say, ‘OK, well what do we need to do moving forward?’ Part of the retool is we’re finding out positives and negatives about a lot of different situations in our group.”
Saad is in his fourth season with the Blues. During the prime of his career, he helped Chicago win the Stanley Cup twice: in 2013 and then in 2015.
Terminating his contract comes in the aftermath of trading defenseman Scott Perunovich to the New York Islanders for a conditional 2026 fifth-round pick.
“I talked to the coach over the last little while and he didn’t see a future to get him in the lineup here,” Armstrong said. “So, when an opportunity came to give him a chance to play and the Islanders were interested, it seemed like something that made sense for us to help him along and wish him nothing but the best.”
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL
The Associated Press