Blues announce a final roster with only six healthy defensemen
ST. LOUIS -- The Blues will keep only six healthy defensemen on their opening night roster, which was announced Tuesday morning by general manager Doug Armstrong.
Chris Butler and Petteri Lindbohm are headed to St. Louis' AHL team in Chicago, partially to save cap space during a relatively light schedule in October. Defenseman Carl Gunnarsson is an injured non-roster player with a hip injury, but he won't start the season on injured reserve and will count on the official 23-man roster.
Veterans such as Alex Pietrangelo, Kevin Shattenkirk, Jay Bouwmeester and Barret Jackman lead the way on defense, along with Jordan Leopold and Ian Cole. But some of the young players aren't far from getting their chance in St. Louis. That's especially true for Lindbohm, a 2012 draft pick from Finland who Armstrong said was expected to get only a four-day tryout at training camp this year.
"He just got better and better as camp went on," Armstrong said. "And then after the Minnesota game I talked to him about, 'We'd like you to stay. We think you're closer than further and with no hesitation he said, 'I'm a North American player now.'"
The Blues got a significantly different response from Peter Mueller, who got assigned to Chicago over the weekend in favor of other forwards such as Chris Porter and Joakim Lindstrom. Armstrong said Mueller, who was hoping to come back after a year-long absence from the NHL, refused to play in Chicago and will be released from his contract to look for work in Europe.
Forward Dmitrij Jaskin will go to Chicago, and forward Robby Fabbri has been assigned back to his junior team, the Ontario Hockey League's Guelph Storm. The first-round draft pick may have been the surprise of camp and looks to have recalibrated the Blues' plans for his future.
"What I said to Robby was, 'I thought you were going to be two years in junior hockey and then one year in the minors and then we can look at you,'" Armstrong said. "'You've impressed us enough that if you go down to the (Ontario) Hockey League, have a good World Junior, have a good season, we have to look at you as a potential player on our roster next year.'"
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This season, though, the Blues believe they have more than enough depth to avoid relying on an 18-year-old who still could use some physical maturation to take them to the next level, which should be competing for a Stanley Cup. A strong training camp for newcomers such as Lindstrom and Jori Lehtera only confirmed that assertion for Armstrong and coach Ken Hitchcock, even though some newly earned roster spots are by no means guaranteed.
"They may have found it," Armstrong said of players who narrowly made the cut. "Now they have to keep it. I know that there's players pushing from behind either out of the 14 forwards that are here or players that are currently in the American Hockey League."
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