Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

New Blues owner calls new spending a ‘smart investment’

NHL Labor

Tom Stillman, owner of the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League, watches his Triple-A franchise, the Peoria Rivermen in their American Hockey League game with the Rockford Icehogs at Carver Arena on Friday, Oct. 19, 2012. The NHL wiped out the third week of the regular season Friday as the lockout dragged on, leaving no more wiggle room if the league hopes to play a full 82-game schedule. (AP Photo/Peoria Journal Star/Ron Johnson)

AP

St. Louis Blues owner Tom Stillman has been spending plenty of money this summer to retain key restricted free agents. He’ll have to spend even more to keep Alex Pietrangelo around as well, but that doesn’t bother him one bit.

The Blues haven’t been a spend-heavy team in a while, but Stillman tells Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he’s OK with the money because of what it’ll bring.

“When we purchased the Blues a little over a year ago, we said that our plan was to straighten out the business side and put a strong, competitive, contending team on the ice,” Stillman said. “In my view, all we’re doing here is following through on what we said we would do. We’ve invested more heavily in the team itself, and we’re doing that because we want to win. We also think that is a smart investment because that is what’s going to make the franchise stable and sustainable as a business.”

Attendance has been a bit of a problem in recent years for the Blues thanks to issues with their ownership holding things down.

Now with Stillman in charge, the purse strings have loosened up a bit and guys like Kevin Shattenkirk, Chris Stewart, Jay Bouwmeester, and Derek Roy have benefited from that.

Now if they can just get Pietrangelo’s deal done everyone can get ready for the regular season.

Follow @JoeYerdonPHT