Updated: Four Blues RFAs file for salary arbitration

(Update: here are the dates for the arbitration hearings: Binnington, July 20th; Ville Husso, July 22nd; Sundqvist, July 24th; Edmundson, August 4th)

The Blues extended qualifying offers to nine of their 11 RFAs on June 25th, and, as is to be expected, the players eligible for arbitration decided to pursue it. Jordan Binnington, Joel Edmundson, Oskar Sundqvist, and Zach Sanford all have playoff experience to cash in on, and who can blame them?

Binnington is the most interesting of the group, because there’s not much of an example to go by. The closest one is Andrew Hammond, who after his incredible play for the Senators in 2014 got a raise to $1,350,000 a season. There is no way on God’s green earth that Binnington gets that little. The Blues will be coming from the angle of “small sample size,” and his agent will come from the angle of “my client saved your season and helped you win the Stanley Cup.” Kid will get a raise after the two teams meet in the middle. It will be a bigger raise than the Hamburglar got.

Oskar Sundqvist was integral on the fourth line - if you don’t believe me, look at how well the team performed without him in game three. Sanford was a frequent healthy scratch but he more than redeemed himself in the Final. He should get a raise for his pass to Ryan O’Reilly’s goal in game five alone.

Joel Edmundson is the one question mark. He was scratched not frequently, but enough to raise an eyebrow and provide leverage for the Blues in arguing against a huge paycheck. His play during the playoffs wasn’t always strong. He may be the one out of the four that the Blues have to wait the longest to come to the table.