Does Rucinsky want to re-sign in St. Louis?

When asked if he intends to re-sign with the St. Louis Blues, pending unrestricted free agent forward Martin Rucinsky tells Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he has not made a decision yet.

“I don’t know… I haven’t thought about it yet,” Rucinsky said. “This year has been a tough year for me, all the way around. I’ll see what happens. I’m not going to make any decisions now. It wouldn’t make sense. I’ll take some time off, see what happens and I’m going to look at my options and see if I want to play… if I don’t want to play.”

The Blues tried to move Rucinsky before this month’s trade deadline, but teams weren’t lining up to take on his $4.75 million contract salary. The Czech forward says that while he didn’t think about the possibility of being moved before the deadline, he would have kept an open mind.

“I wasn’t really thinking about it to be honest with you,” said Rucinsky, who has a no-trade clause. “If something would come along then I would have looked at it. If not, then fine. I wanted to stay here… I’ve been here for two years. I like my teammates and I want to finish it here.”

However, it would have been hard for Rucinsky to leave his teammates and the organization while they are going through tough times.

“I decided to sign here two years ago, and I pretty much stuck to it the whole two years,” Rucinsky said. “I’m not the kind of person that’s going to run away from problems. I knew coming here could go either way. The team when I came here signed some new guys to try and make the team better. Obviously I know [Blues President John Davidson] from New York. I decided to come here and I’m not going to look at it as a bad two years.”

In fact, Rucinsky says that he loves playing in St. Louis and would consider a return.

“I love it here, I like this city… when I was here the first time, it was a good year. We made the playoffs. I always like St. Louis and will have good memories. Obviously it would be way better if we make the playoffs both years, but that’s the way it is sometimes. It’s not an easy thing to do these days, make the playoffs. It didn’t happen. Everything bad is happening for some good reason. I believe in that. As long as you survive, then it’s good.”

And if things don’t work out with the Blues, don’t expect Rucinsky to retire. The veteran feels he’s still got something to offer.

“I can play this game,” Rucinsky said. “When I’m healthy, I feel pretty good… I feel strong. Conditioning-wise, it’s not a problem at all. Obviously I’m not 22 years old any more, but I feel like I can skate. I think that I can contribute somehow somewhere, but we’ll see what happens.”