Last year Scottie Upshall had to compete in the St. Louis Blues’ training camp for a contract. He won’t have to go through that again in 2016.
St. Louis announced that they have signed him to a one-year contract. They didn’t disclose the financial terms, but he’ll reportedly earn $900K, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Jeremy Rutherford.
Update: Blues GM Doug Armstrong has confirmed that the cap hit is $900K, according to NHL.com’s Lou Korac.
That’s a bump from his 2015-16 salary of $700K, but it’s still a far cry from the four-year, $14 million deal that expired in the summer of 2015.
Upshall is a bottom-six forward with 623 games worth of NHL experience. He appeared in 70 games last season, but averaged just 10:57 minutes per contest.
With the 32-year-old forward signed, St. Louis’ list of noteworthy potential UFAs has been reduced to Troy Brouwer, Steve Ott, Kyle Brodziak, and of course David Backes. The Blues have a fair amount of cap flexibility and as you might imagine signing Upshall hasn’t altered that in any significant way. However, the Blues and Backes “haven’t been able to find that common ground” so he might end up on the market anyways.