So you're signing a 30 year old for 8 years?

And Dunn for 1.5 mil?

Not sure J-Bo comes back. And yeah, Dunn needs more than that. Probably gonna need to be at least 9M for Petro.

Trade Bozak to make room at 3C for Thomas. Get rid of Steen and Allen. Sign Schenn. Dunn’s next deal probably starts with a 4, not a 1.

Schwartz Schenn Tarasenko
Perron ROR Kyrou
Fabbri Thomas Kostin
Barbashev Sundqvist Blais

Dunn Pietrangelo
Gunnarsson Parayko
Mikkola Faulk

Binnington
Husso

Dunn still does not have leverage (no arb rights), so they'll give him a short term contract, comparable to Barbashev. Dunn will get bigger money in another year or two. Maybe he takes a 1 year $1.5 and not a 2 year $1.5 so that he gets his arb hearing the following year. Or to your point, the Blues may pay more this offseason to lock him in for longer term at a lower AAV than he might be worth after arb (i.e. 5 years at $3.5-$4M per year). This would make it harder to sign others free agents, so I think Army plays hardball with Dunn for another year, similar to Barbie. Faulk actually gives Army more leverage in playing hardball with Dunn, as Dunn is similar to Faulk in terms of skill set (but he's not at Faulk's level yet).

Blues may need to go longer (7-8 years) with Petro to get the lower AAV of $8.5M, as he'd get much higher AAV on the outside. If Petro wants more AAV, then the Blues will limit the term. $8.5M for 8 is equal to $11.3 for 6 years. Petro may get some team to pay $11M AAV for a 5-6 year term on the outside. Not saying that that Blues will do this, but Army has a history of overpaying term length at relatively lower AAV for his favorite players (think Steen, Bergie, Sobotka, JBouw, maybe even Perron). The best way to fit Petro into the cap for the near term is to overpay term length to get lower AAV. Maybe it is only 6 years at $8.5M, but I don't see Army going to $9-$10M or more AAV on Petro.

If Allen and Steen have comparable 2019-20 seasons as they did this past year, there is no way that Army will buyout the last year of their contracts. Both were critical parts of the Stanley Cup run...Allen was a stud on the road in the back half of the year, and Steen was among the most valuable offensive defenders on the team playing on that 4th line (Sunny and Barbie getting all the credit, but Steener played some of his best hockey in years when in counted). Steen was also perhaps our best PK player. Despite being overpaid, he's still a value to the team, so Army will have no incentive to buy him out and penalize future teams with his allocated cap hit. Same with Allen...Army won't hurt the 2021-22 and future teams with the allocated cap his from any buyout.