This is basic NHL history that it's wrong to not know actually.
The Blues signed Scott Stevens as a free agent in the summer of 1990 and the NHL took away the next five first round draft choices from the Blues (and the Caps farted them away with mostly bad picks). Five first round picks. Five. For signing a restricted free agent.
The next summer the Blues signed Brendan Shanahan, who didn't cost 5 first rounders according to his free agency classification, so instead the league corruptly ruled through corrupt arbitrator Edward J. Houston that the penalty for signing him was to cost a player who cost 5 first rounders (follow that logic).
For signing Shanahan, Lamoreillo was required vaguely buy the CBA to negotiate in "good faith" which is laughable because there was no negotiation, he asked the arbitrator to award him Stevens as a penalty. One of the greatest defensemen in the history of the game taken off the roster as a punishment for daring to use the rules correctly. So the Blues offered that their penalty should only be one Hall of Very Good player in Curtis Joseph, a HoF player in the second year Rod Brind'Amour (last forward to lead a Cup champion in ice time) and 2 additional picks each around #40 overall. But the league said how dare you try to escape punishment like that and stripped Stevens away. It was an extraordinary sports outrage on Sept 3, 1991 when it was announced and it remains one today.
That is the free agency world we used to live in and the Blues broke it and you are all welcome except for Devils fans.