Grubauer went 18-12-4 with a 2.63 GAA and .916 SV% in 36 starts in 2020. Grubauer comes into 2021 as the No.1 netminder for one of the best teams' in the NHL but Pavel Francouz is one of the more capable backups in the league, so he will need to play well to earn himself a large share of the starts. Grubauer was 2-2-0 with a 3.26 GAA and .882 SV% in four starts vs. the Blues a season ago.
Bjorkstrand finally saw his long-awaited bump in ice time in 2020 and he turned out a career-year, which was unfortunately hampered by injuries. Overall, he scored 21 goals with 15 assists (36 points) in 49 games, a 35-goal and 60-point per 82-game pace. Bjorkstrand is expected to continue to see huge minutes in 2021 as a fixture on the Blue Jackets' top line with Pierre-Luc Dubois.
Dunn was the last of the Blues unsigned RFAs and gets a one-year contract for a very good number for a team tight up against the salary cap. Dunn's numbers dipped a bit in 2020 and he still has plenty of competition for playing time with Torey Krug coming over to replace Alex Pietrangelo. Still, he's scored 21 goals over the last two seasons and should continue to be a good source of goals with modest assist totals in 2021.
Burakovsky earns a nice raise (from $3.25M to $4.9M) after setting career-highs in goals (20), assists (25), points (45) and PPP (11). Burakovsky has found a home in Colorado's top-6, sometimes on a line with Nathan MacKinnon, so he could take his point totals to another level in 2021.
Gibson was steady in net for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (AHL) in 2020, going 10-8-5 with a 2.78 GAA and .914 SV%. Gibson has played very sparingly in the NHL throughout his seven-year pro career, going 3-4-3 with a 3.45 GAA and .904 SV% in 14 career games. Gibson will likely be the No.1 netminder in Syracuse (AHL) in 2021 and would come up if something were to happen to Andrei Vasilevskiy or Curtis McElhinney.
The RFA got a $2.0M raise after posting a career-high 22 points (8G / 14A) while appearing in just 41 games. The 26-year-old forward was a Swiss Army Knife for the Golden Knights in 2020, playing up and down the lineup, on the wing or at centre, depending on what Vegas needed. Stephenson is best suited in a bottom-6 role and if he's their fourth line centre, they're in great shape.
Stephens was a second-round pick (No.33 overall) in 2015 and graduated to the NHL in 2020. The 23-year-old centre had 10 points (5G / 5A) in 24 AHL games before getting promoted and picking up six points (3G / 3A) in 38 games in Tampa. He appeared in seven playoff games, scoring one goal en route to getting his name on the Stanley Cup.
Kempny had surgery for a torn hamstring in 2019 and struggled through most of 2020 and will now most, if not all of 2021 after suffering a torn Achilles’ tendon while training in the Czech Republic. After finding out about Kempny's injury, the Capitals re-signed Brendan Dillon to a four-year extension. Dillon filled in for Kempny next to John Carlson on the top-pair last year.