Krug agrees to seven-year, $45.5 million contract with Blues

Torey Krug agreed to a seven-year, $45.5 million contract with the St. Louis Blues on Friday. It has an average annual value of $6.5 million.

The 29-year-old defenseman scored 49 points (nine goals, 40 assists) in 61 games with the Boston Bruins last season after three straight seasons with at least 51 points. He led NHL defensemen with 28 power-play points (two goals, 26 assists) in 2019-20.

"To be honest, it was kind of not expected," Krug said. "But as the day went on, it just seemed more and more like a perfect fit. Going through some of the things that were available, with the roster that the Blues have in place, and the core group, it just seemed like a match made in heaven. It feels great. I'm very excited to get going."

Krug said he had not received a contract offer from the Bruins in about a year.

"I didn't know what today was going to bring and I was going to welcome anything that came through the door or rang through the phone," he said. "It didn't work out (with the Bruins). I was looking forward to having a conversation with them. It just didn't happen. But I'm very lucky and I feel like an opportunity to join the Blues was just lucky and very happy that it worked out. Very excited to join this group."

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Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said signing Krug does not prevent them from re-signing defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, who has been St. Louis captain since 2016-17.

"You never know what happens in the future," Armstrong said. "We have to get very creative. But Alex has been a great part of this franchise. You never know what happens in the future. What we were trying to do was knock things off as they came, and [Krug] came first."

Signed by Boston as an undrafted free agent March 25, 2012, Krug scored 337 points (67 goals, 270 assists) in 523 regular-season games with the Bruins and 52 points (11 goals, 41 assists) in 75 Stanley Cup Playoff games. He had six assists in 13 postseason games last season after he scored 18 points (two goals, 16 assists) in 24 games in the 2019 playoffs, when Boston lost in seven games to St. Louis in the Stanley Cup Final.

"He's not tall, obviously, but he is thick and he plays above his size (5-foot-9, 186 pounds)," Armstrong said. "But his quickness is very important for us. He gets back, retrieves pucks, makes an excellent first pass out of the zone.

"I talked to some players in our group today about how he was to play against. They said very elusive on the forecheck, very hard to get at. Then we know the player, we know what he can do on a power play. So I think when you have players like [Marco] Scandella and [Robert] Bortuzzo and [Colton] Parayko with great size, [Niko] Mikkola's got great size, you're allowed to input different players, and we have [Justin Faulk] and [Vince Dunn] and [Carl Gunnarsson], so we have a really good group back there now."

NHL.com staff writer Amalie Benjamin contributed to this report