ST. LOUIS _ It was pretty much love at first sight for Marco Scandella and the Blues.
From the day the veteran defenseman arrived in St. Louis following his March 18 trade from Montreal, Scandella never had to worry about getting an Uber or catching a cab to work.
"Guys were fighting over who's gonna take me to the rink," Scandella told the Post-Dispatch.
Blues management set him up in a team apartment so he didn't have to stay in a hotel.
When he walked into the locker room for the first time, he saw five players that he knew, including former Buffalo Sabres teammate Ryan O'Reilly.
He would be paired on defense with Colton Parayko, an emerging talent who appears to be on the verge of stardom.
In conversations with general manager Doug Armstrong and coach Craig Berube, Scandella had a clearly defined role.
Last but certainly not least, after spending time with a pair of likely non-playoff qualifiers in Montreal and Buffalo, he was headed to the penthouse. At age 30, Scandella is very much in his prime; nonetheless, he's closer to the end than the beginning of his NHL career.
Almost invariably, and this cuts across all sports, the farther a professional athlete gets in his career the more he covets winning _ winning it all _ over individual accomplishments or money.
"I'm 10 years in, I feel like I've learned a lot," Scandella said. "I have the experience now, the knowledge. And a team like St. Louis, it's just a perfect opportunity for me to win. This is the only goal that I have for the rest of my career, winning a Stanley Cup."
Less than a week into his time with the Blues, Scandella _ a native of Montreal _ was telling his family that St. Louis felt like home.
"Just the community, the Midwest feel, just how the fans are," Scandella said. "The team had just won, and I knew that the team was still there to do it again. What better situation to be in? My style of play. A good system. Big, strong team that defends well. I just felt like it was perfect for me."
The feeling was mutual. Because after just 11 games' worth of Scandella, the team had seen enough, signing him to a four-year, $13.1 million contract extension ostensibly as Jay Bouwmeester's replacement.
Maybe this doesn't happen without the NHL's coronavirus "pause," now in its sixth week. Maybe the uncertainty of the NHL salary cap next season was motivation for Scandella to get something done.
But it happened.
"I always told myself that I was never gonna sign for the money," Scandella said. "I play hockey for the passion and love of the game. I felt like we came to a fair agreement.
"When the coronavirus thing happened, I felt like I was playing my best hockey. I was a little bit bummed out to (potentially) lose the opportunity to play in the playoffs and show a little more of what I had. I was just not sure if I had done enough."
But again, Armstrong and Blues ownership had seen enough to commit to Scandella for four more years.
Of course, playing with a talent such as Parayko can make a lot of defensemen look good.
"I mean, how many guys are 6-foot-6 and skate like the wind?" Scandella said. "When he decides to step it up and just skate it up the ice by himself, he can do it.
"Defends hard. Very smart player out there. Team-oriented guy. He talks on the ice, too. You know what to expect, where he's gonna be, how to play with him. It was pretty easy to read off him, and I feel like it's the same for him. It just works."
Scandella said he hasn't felt such chemistry with a D-partner since his days with Jared Spurgeon in Minnesota. With Parakyo, this happened over 11 games.
Scandella stayed in St. Louis at the team apartment for about a week and half after the NHL halted play March 12. But cabin fever sent him back to his home province of Quebec. He's renting a lake house near the town of Bromont about an hour south of Montreal.
"A real nice area with a lot of lakes," Scandella said. "It's been nice to be away from the city, where you can actually feel like you're not in quarantine.
"The quarantine thing, it hasn't been easy. That's all I gotta say. We've put in a month and a bit now. Hopefully, it's getting better and we can get out of this."
At the moment, Scandella's activities have been limited to hiking _ and as you may have seen on Twitter _ chopping down trees with an axe.
"I only cut dead trees, by the way, because it's kind of a natural park where I'm going," he said.
This takes Scandella back to his younger days when he'd head north of Montreal to a family cabin with his father (now deceased).
"My dad was a huge advocate of hard labor," Scandella said. "So he'd bring me up there, where we would cut the grass, take care of the property, cut down trees. ... Just made me work and we would bond over that. Growing up it was my escape going up there."
The location is different this April, but getting away from it all in the outdoors of Quebec has been his escape once again.
"During this whole quarantine thing, I was like, 'You know what, let me just take it back to my roots,'" Scandella said. "It's kinda fun, something I enjoy. And it's been helping me on the mental side for sure."
As does $13.1 million over four years.
