St. Louis Blues Begin Training Camp Minus Jaden Schwartz

Despite the fact that most of the St. Louis Blues players have been skating together as a group for the last month, Thursday was the official training camp report date, and as the team assembled this morning forward Jaden Schwartz was absent. The 22-year-old has remained unsigned throughout the offseason as the Blues have been dealing with other issues, most notably their extended negotiations with and the subsequent departure of forward Vladimir Sobotka. The contract talks between Schwartz and the Blues reportedly have not resulted in much progress, because the money that Schwartz has been asking for would potentially compromise the Blues’ salary cap situation.

Schwartz is an important component of the Blues’ roster, having scored 25 goals and notched 31 assists over 80 games in his first full-length NHL season. If the team doesn’t have him available, they’ll have to rely on one of the many dumpster dive veterans they signed this offseason, including Peter Mueller, Joakim Lindstrom, and Colin Fraser, to try to soak up some of his production.

There’s not a huge need to worry about Schwartz’s status yet, because the Blues seem to turn up the negotiations once training camp gets underway. They had a similar situation at the beginning of last season with defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, but after a one-day holdout he was back on the ice with a new long-term contract. With that said, general manager Doug Armstrong acknowledged that he didn’t think Schwartz would be in camp tomorrow, so it’s probably not going to be quite as easy of a process as Pietrangelo’s was.

While training camp practices overall aren’t very significant for an experienced player like Schwartz, his absence will have an immediate effect on the dynamic of the team. The Blues had assembled forward pairs to work together in the early practices, and Schwartz was scheduled to work with Dmitrij Jaskin, the team’s brightest NHL-ready prospect. But with Schwartz out of the fold for the moment, Jaskin instead will be left to work with recently-signed journeyman Fraser, who is unlikely to ever actually work with Schwartz in a game situation.

Jaskin has an important camp ahead of him, having a chance to break into the lineup but also being at risk of another assignment to the AHL. Having a dynamic offensive player like Schwartz to work with during practice could be the difference between him breaking out or staying at the same level he was at last year, when he failed to make much of an impact in his limited opportunities.