Center Pius Suter (24) joined the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, signing a two-year, $8.25 million free agent contract. (Danny Wild-Imagn Images) [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/85ae523e-bc9b-4dc8-b94f-7ffaf80f3144.jpeg] Center Pius Suter (24) joined the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, signing a two-year, $8.25 million free agent contract. (Danny Wild-Imagn Images) ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Blues [http://thn.com/stlouis] picked up middle of the lineup center they were hoping to get. Multiple reports had the Blues signing Pius Suter to a two-year contract worth $8.25 million ($4.125 million average annual value). The team confirmed the signing. The 29-year-old, who set career highs in goals (25) and points (46) with the Vancouver Canucks [http://thn.com/vancouver] last season in 81 games, will fill a void the Blues obviously needed in the middle of the lineup as a 2C/3C with Brayden Schenn. He is an exceptional defensive center with excellent penalty kill skills who just so happened to create offense off his defense a season ago and parlayed them into scoring chances, thus setting career highs in goals and points: With the addition of Suter, the Blues now have Robert Thomas, Schenn, Suter, Oskar Sundqvist and Nick Bjugstad, who St. Louis signed to a two-year, $3.5 million ($1.75 million AAV) free agent contract on Tuesday from the Utah Mammoth [http://thn.com/utah], to utilize down the middle of the ice. Remember last season, when Suter scored a third-period hat trick against the Blues? And look where he scored those goals: around the net and slot area. Blues coach Jim Montgomery is going to love this. It was no secret that the Blues were in the market for a middle man, and when Sam Bennett came off the board and re-signed with the Florida Panthers and Mikael Granlund signed a three-year contract with the Anaheim Ducks for $7 million AAV, it was apparent the Blues were not going to get to those numbers. But this is a low-risk, high-reward contract the Blues could fit into their salary cap, and they'll be fine when they place Torey Krug ($6.5 million AAV) on long-term injured-reserve and once Nick Leddy ($4 million AAV) either is picked up or clears waivers Thursday.
