- Elliotte Friedman says the Blues have told the rest of the league they have extra NHL forwards available
- Pius Suter, Alexey Toropchenko, Nathan Walker, Oskar Sundqvist, Dillon Dube and Jack Finley are all squeezed into the same few spots
- Read below for how St. Louis got this crowded up front and which names could actually move
The Blues have more NHL forwards than they have room for, and they are not keeping it quiet.
Elliotte Friedman was going through the pre-season trade market on the latest 32 Thoughts podcast when he got to St. Louis, and he said the Blues have already put the word out around the league.
“One thing I kind of heard is that in St. Louis, for example, they have a bunch of NHL guys who are kind of in the bottom six, and not all of them are going to make their team,” Friedman said. “And I think the Blues have let it be known that if you want some NHL depth, deeper in your roster, guys who’ve played, we have extras.”
St. Louis built this problem on purpose. The Blues shipped Jordan Kyrou to Washington in the swap that brought back Connor McMichael, then sent two first-round picks to Anaheim for Mason McTavish.
Around those moves came a pile of depth adds. Ross Johnston signed in free agency, Oskar Sundqvist returned, Dillon Dube got his AHL deal converted to an NHL one, and Jonatan Berggren re-signed after the Blues non-tendered him.
Berggren has done his part to complicate the math. Watch him pass to himself and score in Monday’s preseason game in Dallas:
Two names stand out on money alone. Pius Suter carries a $4.125 million cap hit and Alexey Toropchenko sits at $2.5 million, and neither one is locked into a role that matches the price.
Everyone else should come cheap. Berggren and Jack Finley arrived as waiver claims, Nathan Walker has cleared waivers during his time in St. Louis, and Sundqvist and Dube signed as free agents.
Johnston is the one veteran who looks safe. He signed a three-year deal over the summer to be the physical presence, and the Blues did not pay that freight to waive him in September.
Waiver traffic is already heavy across the league, with 15 players placed on Tuesday alone. Teams staring at the same crunch would rather trade a player than hand him to somebody for free, which is why the phone calls start now.
Only two preseason games remain, on Sept. 24 and Sept. 26, and after that somebody has to go.
