NHL free agency: Ryan Miller will hit market as Blues sign Brian Elliott
Ryan Miller will be a free agent this summer. The Blues have signed Brian Elliott to continue as their starting goaltender.
The Ryan Miller experiment in St. Louis lasted just 25 games. The pending free agent goaltender will hit the market this July 1, which we learned this Monday morning as the Blues signed goaltender Brian Elliott to a three-year, $7.5 million contract.
Miller was acquired at the 2014 trade deadline from the Buffalo Sabres along with Steve Ott (another pending free agent) in exchange for a first round draft choice and goaltender Jaroslav Halak. Miller was acquired because the Blues didn't have faith in Halak and Elliott, and after losing in the first round to the Kings, they'll now be sticking with Elliott and backup Jake Allen.
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It’s even more awkward considered Elliott isn’t really worth that three-year deal -- something the Blues tacitly admitted when they traded for Miller before their 2014 playoff run. After an impressive first season in St. Louis where he put up a completely unsustainable .940 save percentage in 38 games, Elliott regressed hard the following season, putting up a mediocre .907 save percentage. His career average save percentage -- even with the .940 year factored in -- is just .911.
In a nutshell, he's been up and down as a member of the Blues, and those 38 games he played in 2011-12 -- while in a tandem with Halak -- are the most he's played in a year with St. Louis. Now, the Blues are banking on him being capable of putting in at least 50 games, likely more, and that he can act as a starting goaltender on a team capable of winning the Stanley Cup.
Meanwhile, Miller will hit the free agent market in July and will be looking for that big UFA pay day. He never really looked comfortable in St. Louis with the Blues, which may have had to do with the fact that he saw a lot less work than he did with the defensively inept Sabres.
contract terms via Jeremy Rutherford
