St. Louis Blues re-sign Colton Parayko to five-year, $27.5 million deal

The Blues weren’t about to let Colton Parayko get away, and he just made himself some pretty nice coin as a result.

The St. Louis Blues and 24-year-old blueliner Colton Parayko have come to an agreement today on a five-year, $27.5 million deal. Parayko has asserted himself as one of the best young players in the Blues organization over the last two seasons. On top of that, he might very well be their best blueliner now as well.

Parayko was drafted in the third round, 86th overall, by the Blues in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. Before making his NHL debut in 2015-16, he played in the AJHL for the Fort McMurray Oil Barons for two seasons. He committed to the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in the NCAA from there. Parayko played in 104 games for UA-Fairbanks, scoring 17 goals and adding 66 assists during his time there.

He made his professional hockey debut at the end of the 2014-15 season with the Blues AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. In 17 games with the Wolves, he had four goals, three assists and only six penalty minutes. His solid performances in the NCAA and AHL were enough to catch the attention of the Blues coaching staff.

Parayko made the Blues roster out of training camp for the 2015-16 season and hasn’t looked back since. In his first season in the NHL, he played in 79 games, scoring nine goals and adding 24 assists to his 29 penalty minutes.

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Parayko played in 81 games for the Blues in 2016-17, proving he is a true top pairing defenseman. He scored four goals, added 31 assists to his tally and only had 32 penalty minutes last season.

Along with his solid stat lines, Parayko had a Relative Corsi-For percentage of 1.17 last season, which was best among St. Louis defenseman and fifth on the entire roster.