It's getting pretty tough to figure out what to do here. There are a lot of factors that play into this:
1. Looking at our roster construction/salary cap usage, our window is now plus another two years max - at least with our current "core". Perron and Parayko become UFA after next season, Perron will be 33 and Parayko will be 28. The year after, ROR and Tarasenko become UFA. ROR will be 32 years old and Tarasenko will be 31 years old. Giving Perron, ROR, and Tarasenko large contracts past age 31 is a recipe for disaster imo. There's plenty to criticize about the Krug/Faulk/Schenn contracts, but at least they were signed prior to the player turning 30 and were all signed when we believed we had between 3-5 years left on a potential SC winning roster, which was the majority of those contracts.
2. Schwartz has never been a particularly gifted offensive player - most of his points come from hard work. He hasn't scored over 25 goals or over 60 points since 2014-2015 - yes, he's been on pace to score higher, but he's never able to stay healthy enough to break those milestones - this might be an unpopular opinion, but I believe that health is a skill, just like any other. Freak accidents can happen and bodies can break down at any point, but some guys like Schenn and ROR (And while he was here AP) seem to just keep on trucking, but guys like Schwartz just can't seem to stay in the lineup for a full season. 25 goals and 60 points are what he -should- put up in any given season, but he simply hasn't. He's also been sneaky bad on the PP - over the last five years he's been given the fourth highest PP TOI per-game (2:40 per) among forwards, yet he's scored a grand total of 47 points - for comparison, Schenn, who's averaged about the same PP TOI a game since coming to STL four years ago has put up 58 points. Again, that's 11 more points with an entire less year of service, while averaging about the same amount of time on ice.
3. The options behind Schwarz for top 6 LW on our roster are problematic at best and ugly at worst. Perron could shift over to LW, but he's been so effective where he is, do you really want to mess with that? Who's up after that? Hoffman? UFA and probably not returning. Blais? Decent physicality, makes a nice play here and there, but def not a guy you want in the top 6 for an entire season. Sanford? I mean.....yea. Moving on. Schenn is about it, but then we have a massive hole in our top 6 center spot - Thomas isn't ready and Bozak is 34. Maybe we can get a magic run out of him this year, but betting that at age 35 he can handle top 6 center minutes for a full 82 game season plus playoffs is not a sustainable idea and even that is under the assumption we can bring him back on a contract that makes sense.
4. The market for top 6 LW who are prime aged (Let's say 27-31) include some interesting options, but will all probably cost more then Schwartz will (Schwartz will be 29 when his next contract kicks in) or aren't as good as Schwartz. Taylor Hall and Zach Hyman will be 30, RNH, Landeskog, and Saad will all be 29, Tatar and Palmieri will be 31. How many of those guys are even an upgrade to Schwartz? Landeskog and RNH are, but Saad is a slight downgrade and I'm not interested in Tatar and Palmieri. Hyman is playing next to two world class offensive players, I'd bet the farm he doesn't come close to those sort of gaudy offensive numbers without Matthews/Nylander. Hall is still suuuuper interesting, he's looked AMAZING since he got traded to an actual NHL team, but man he's got a big body of work that says he sucks too. Schwartz you know what you're getting at least.
Schwartz's value to the Blues is tied almost entirely to how we view ourselves over the next two years. Does Army think this is a Cup contending team? I'd like to hope so, otherwise he should have moved Schwartz at the deadline for futures. If we are considering ourselves Cup contenders, it really doesn't matter the "comps" out there, b/c Schwartz's intrinsic value to this team is simply too high to let him go over the difference of 500k to 1m AAV. Schwartz might not have done himself any favors this season with his production, but he's in a really good position to negotiate based off positional scarcity and our desire to win.