St. Louis Blues Give Peter Mueller One Year, Two-Way Deal

The St. Louis Blues have signed 26-year-old center Peter Mueller to a one-year, two-way contract, the financial terms of which have yet to be disclosed. This is one of the highest-profile two-way contracts in recent memory, as Muller was the eighth pick overall in the 2006 NHL Draft and in 2007-08 had 22 goals and 32 assists for the Phoenix Coyotes. Unfortunately, concussions halted his development, and he has not played 50 games in a season since 2009-10. While those issues persisted, he bounced around to the Colorado Avalanche and Florida Panthers and did not have a whole lot of success.

Mueller reportedly has gotten his health under control, though, and he went to Switzerland last season and played with the Kloten Flyers to re-establish himself. Mueller had 24 goals and 22 assists over 49 games, which despite the lesser competition is still pretty impressive.

Assuming that the Blues don’t make any trades or suffer injuries to their main group of forwards prior to the beginning of the season, Mueller will join a large group of forwards with NHL experience at the Blues’ Chicago AHL affiliate and try to make himself stand out. He’ll be competing with the likes of Benn Ferriero, Phil McRae, John McCarthy, and Jeremy Welsh, but he has had the most previous NHL success of any of those guys. If he displays the form that he did both early in his career and last year in Switzerland, Mueller could be one of the first options for a call-up if and when the Blues sustain an injury to their forward corps.