{"id":116437,"date":"2021-08-04T17:07:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T21:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=116437"},"modified":"2021-08-04T17:25:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T21:25:51","slug":"st-lous-blues-re-sign-zach-sanford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/08\/04\/st-lous-blues-re-sign-zach-sanford\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Lous Blues Re-Sign Zach Sanford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The St. Louis Blues have re-signed depth forward Zach Sanford for the 2021-22 season as we continue through summer. The deal is just for the coming year and carries a cap hit of $2 million. The Blues have been fairly active signing players this offseason including this most recent move in order to avoid arbitration. Elliotte Friedman reported the move Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/1423020128694845443?s=20<\/p>\n<h2>Blues Re-Sign Zach Sanford<\/h2>\n<p>Sanford was one of St. Louis&#8217; many secondary options in 2020-21. The 26-year-old skater appeared in 52 out of 56 games with 10 goals and six assists for 16 points during that time. His average ice time spiked to a new career-best of 14:53 due to injuries to other options. He was also credited with 69 hits and 44 blocks with a 44.6 Corsi For and -5.6 relative Corsi. Some of the raw stats look fine, but he was borderline terrible from an advanced perspective. It wasn&#8217;t as though he spent an egregious amount of time on defence with only 55 percent of his starts coming in that zone.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/capitals\/\" target=\"_self\">Washington Capitals<\/a> originally drafted Sanford in the second round of the 2013 Draft. The former Boston College Eagle appeared for 26 games as a rookie in the U.S. capital before heading to St. Louis via trade that included, among others, Kevin Shattenkirk. He is mostly suited to a bottom-six role, but 248 career hits and 133 blocks are things many organizations still value. Sanford also has 38 goals and 74 points in 209 career games.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means<\/h3>\n<p>Sanford will have a clear path towards regular playing time again in 2021-22. The Blues have several players who can do similar things but expect a regular role on the third or fourth line as a checking forward with some occasional offence.<\/p>\n<p>St. Louis has just $1.5 million after this signing with one restricted free agent left to address. The entirety of that space should go towards Robert Thomas, who is due a raise from his previous cap hit of $894,000. That is likely the team&#8217;s last significant move barring a trade.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: OTTAWA, ON &#8211; MARCH 14: St. Louis Blues Winger Zach Sanford (12) during the warm-up before National Hockey League action between the St. Louis Blues and Ottawa Senators on March 14, 2019, at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, ON, Canada. (Photo by Richard A. Whittaker\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The St. Louis Blues have re-signed depth forward Zach Sanford for the 2021-22 season as we continue through summer. The deal is just for the coming year and carries a cap hit of $2 million. The Blues have been fairly active signing players this offseason including this most recent move in order to avoid arbitration. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":44293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,34,4548,32],"tags":[662,1310,5801,2064],"class_list":["post-116437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-blues","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-robert-thomas","tag-st-louis-blues-news","tag-zach-sanford"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}