The Blues have a roster crunch on their hands, and it sounds like they’re already shopping from the bottom of the depth chart rather than waiting for the waiver wire to force their hand.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on the latest 32 Thoughts podcast that St. Louis has let it be known it has a surplus of depth veterans it would be willing to move. With waiver activity picking up around the league and expected to keep building before the regular season begins, the Blues appear to be weighing trades as a way to avoid losing players for nothing.
St. Louis has had a busy summer, and the roster has changed in several directions at once.
The club traded Jordan Kyrou to Washington in a deal that brought back Connor McMichael, among other pieces. It also sent two first-round picks to Anaheim to land center Mason McTavish and added former Ducks winger Ross Johnston in free agency.
The Blues also re-signed winger Jonatan Berggren after initially non-tendering him, brought back center Oskar Sundqvist, and turned center Dillon Dube’s AHL deal into an NHL contract.
Those names - along with center Jack Finley and winger Nathan Walker - may be the group St. Louis is looking to move from. If the Blues are open to dealing a more expensive piece, winger Alexey Toropchenko at $2.5 million and center Pius Suter at $4.125 million could also be options, especially if their expected roles on the opening roster don’t line up with their cap hits.
For the rest of that group, the price to acquire them shouldn’t be especially steep. Berggren and Finley came in via waiver claims, Walker has cleared waivers during his time with St.
Louis, and Dube and Sundqvist arrived as unrestricted free agents. With younger players such as Otto Stenberg, Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, and Zach Dean also in the mix, the Blues have enough depth to consider moving out a veteran or two.
That decision could come by trade or by putting a player through waivers. Either way, general manager Alex Steen still has a few days to sort it out.
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