Source: Alex Pietrangelo agrees to 7-year deal with Vegas Golden Knights
Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, seen as the top free-agent prize in the NHL this offseason, agreed Monday to a seven-year deal worth $8.8 million a year with the Vegas Golden Knights, a source confirmed to ESPN.
The deal, worth a total of $61.6 million and including a no-movement clause, was first reported by The Athletic.
Adding the top free agent available gives Vegas another big-money talent, but the team will need to shed salary to fit him under the $81.5 million salary cap. According to multiple reports, the team made progress there later Monday by trading defenseman Nate Schmidt, who is signed through 2024-25 with an annual cap hit of $5.95 million, to the Vancouver Canucks for a 2022 third-round draft choice.
Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, defenseman Alec Martinez and winger Max Pacioretty are among other trade candidates to clear cap space. Vegas already sent center Paul Stastny to the Winnipeg Jets.
Pietrangelo was drafted fourth overall by the St. Louis Blues in 2008. They are the only NHL team for which he has played, with Pietrangelo serving as their captain since 2016 and helping the team to its first Stanley Cup in 2019.
Pietrangelo's time with the Blues was effectively over after they signed free-agent defenseman Torey Krug, formerly of the Boston Bruins, to a seven-year, $45.5 million contract Friday.
"We had some really good conversations and we just couldn't get anything done," said Blues general manager Doug Armstrong, who said the team offered Pietrangelo a maximum-length, eight-year contract extension. "There's no good or bad person in this. It's just the business side of it."
The Blues previously offered Pietrangelo an average annual salary of $8 million at varying lengths of a deal, including an eight-year contract. But Pietrangelo reportedly wanted a no-movement clause and signing bonus built into the latter years of the contract in case his deal was bought out.
The 30-year-old had a career-high 16 goals plus 36 assists in 70 games during the 2019-20 regular season and one goal and five assists in nine postseason games as the Blues were eliminated in the Western Conference quarterfinals by the Canucks.
Pietrangelo has 109 goals and 341 assists for 450 points in 758 regular-season NHL games.
"He has been a stalwart player for us, for this team for a number of years," Armstrong said. "A huge part of a championship-caliber team. He's going to go down so far as one of the best Blues ever."
Information from ESPN's Greg Wyshynski and The Associated Press was used in this report.
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