Bad

Parayko is a good player, and his contract is likely to be pretty good, or worst case break even, for the next couple of years, but the contract won’t age well in the long run.

It's likely a contract that is good for some and bad for others but looking at the player he is and how few players do what he can makes him have value. A rhd with that size and ability is hard to find regardless of contract. Sure it may be worse near the end but as of now he's a great value to whatever team has him. Definitely his contract affects his value no doubt I'd say a decent 1st and a prospect kinda similar to an o'reilly type deal could be something the blues consider.

Good in first few years then very bad last 4

Bad the day it was signed. Anyone saying otherwise is either a homer or hasn't been paying attention

It's how long term contracts generally work once a player hits their late 20's. You buy 3-4 good years while the team is (hopefully) contending, and then accept that there'll be a decline at the end. Unfortunately for St. Louis, they nose dived a bit early, and there's a good chance they waste those years.

The interesting part about it all is that *if* (when?) the cap take a big jump over the next 2 years, the affect that it has on a team's overall cap issues should be even more negligible. If I was a good team that had the space, I'd absolutely be interested in adding him. IMO, he'd fit your d-core quite nicely.

If St Louis was in the playoffs, I think the tune would be much different.

Edit: There wouldn't even be a tune, because the conversation wouldn't be happening.

Not even slightly. I said as much in the contract thread for him

Funny how you left out the parts where you claimed his contract was "near unmovable" and how "no-one other than blues fans think that parayko will get any type of value in a trade". And it was hardly a back and forth. I proxy rejected a purely idiotic highway robbery offer for Parayko in an AGM, and per usual, people who only "watch Parayko play" on a stat sheet pretended that I asked for the moon and the stars for him. Then I mostly chuckled at some flailing responses and replied with hilarious GIFs because I no longer wanted to discuss the matter with someone who hasn't a clue about it.

As for your title question, I guess we'll all just have to wait and see. Parayko had a subpar year by his standards, but he is still not even close to the problem on that team.

A lot can happen in 8 years...but current rate for this year/next year, I think it's fine.

May get a little hairy down the line.

I think the moment Pietrangelo left, it exposed Parayko. He was billed as this elite shutdown defenceman with offensive upside but never played the hardest minutes, those went to Pietrangelo. Once he left, Parayko just couldn't carry the weight. So he's being paid for what he could do when he had a better guy doing more.

Plus, as the cap goes up, the worry should go down.

Its certainly not a good contract. Parayko is one of those guys who's billed wrong. He's billed as this big elite shutdown guy but he's more of a #2 than a #1. Pietrangelo took the hard matchups and when he left, Parayko just can't do what Pietrangelo did. And that makes it a bad contract. He isn't a number 1 defenceman but he's paid as one. If he made 5 million and had a true #1 partner he would be deadly. Similar to TJ Brodie, doesn't have to be a flashy number 1 but he helps a #1 very much.

I'd put his contract in the "fairly-to-slightly-overpaid" pile. As with all 8 year deals you're basically assuming the last 2-3 years are going to be a write-off; I think he's been okay this year on a bad team and I don't see this being an anchor anytime soon.

That being said, he's not the easiest to trade for - I assume if you even get to him waiving his NTC, it's going to be a situation that has St. Louis taking cap back - contending teams that would want a Parayko don't have the $6.5M in cap space laying around to just make it happen, so the Blues are going to have to take a sizable deal back in that type of deal. And if St. Louis wants additional compensation for that, well...I personally wouldn't go above and beyond to get him, if that makes sense? So he's probably going to ride out the majority of that deal in St. Louis.

It's an OK contract, but it is kinda untradable Blues hope to get any value out the trade. Teams could just sign a UFA for that term and money and be as well off or maybe "not quite" as well but they would keep their assets from the trade.

Bad. Good player, money would be alright if it was like 2-3 years left, but beyond that it's awful.

Looks like youre alone on this one pal. Read the comments. Its home team bias. Sabres fans will tell you skinner is an untradable contract. Hes a good player and especially has came back on with new coaching, but it doesnt change the fact that we all admit its a bad contract that no one will touch. No one is touching an 8 year contract on a 30 year old dman who was very average this year.

See, this isn't quite true. Setting aside the back injury season, and gee of course he won't look himself at that time, Parayko has mostly played the hardest minutes in the league pretty well despite not having a proper partner since J-Bo. The back half of last season and into the playoffs, he was one of the best Dmen in the league - eye test, analytics, whatever you want. With mostly Scandella, Mikkola and Leddy. But everyone just glosses right over that to parrot a narrative of someone else's making. He's had a subpar year, but it hasn't been near as bad as folks make it out to be and they habitually neglect the massive volume of stops he still makes every night. Not even Blues hater Dom has Parayko among his top 15-20 worst contracts. The ones everyone should be slamming are the top 4 LDs, whi have dragged their partners down hard moat of the season, and the forwards who keep giving the puck away in horrible pllaces. Give Parayko a proper partner who can skate and clear net traffic and move the puck simply, and he'd probably be starring again.

What are you on about? Several people who are not Blues fans are disagreeing with your premise, some quite a bit. Everyone can scroll up and see you're just gaslighting.

believe what you want pal