ST. LOUIS -- No surprises for the St. Louis Blues on the eve of roster deadline day after the club placed four players on waivers on Sunday.
NHL rosters have to be submitted by 4 p.m. (CT) on Monday, and it's become crystalized over the past couple days what direction the Blues were headed in in advance of their 2023-24 season-opener Thursday night against the Dallas Stars.
Put on waivers were goalie Malcolm Subban, defenseman Calle Rosen and forwards Mackenzie MacEachern and Nathan Walker.
As for the goaltending, it was pretty clear that Joel Hofer, unless the 2018 fourth-round pick completely flubbed his opportunity, would become part of the 1-2 tandem with Jordan Binnington this season, this making Subban and Vadim Zherenko the tandem with the Springfield Thunderbirds of the American Hockey League should the 29-year-old Subban not get claimed.
But keep in mind that the Tampa Bay Lightning, in light of the recent injury news to Andrei Vasilevskiy's back injury that will sideline the Lightning top goalie for up to 10 weeks, could take a sniff at Subban and his $775,000 contract.
On defense, the Blues were making it clear that they would keep eight d-men, and that's in large part to Tyler Tucker being part of the regular rotation and not wanting to expose 24-year-old Scott Perunovich to waivers. There was no way the Blues were going to risk losing the 2020 Hobey Baker Award winner for nothing despite his injury history. There's just too much upside there, so it made the veteran Rosen the odd man out, and there are Blues fans up in arms over this considering Rosen's play a season ago.
Sure, it was admirable, and this has nothing to do with Rosen himself, but if Rosen was one of the Blues' best defenseman and fans were counting on that again, then this team would be in similar trouble that it was in last season, and we all know how that turned out with no playoffs for the first time since 2018.
So that left the battle for one forward spot, and Alexandrov was clearly the guy the coaches wanted to put in that role and win out over the veterans MacEachern and Walker.
As long as Alexandrov, 23, understands what the Blues want from him and how they need him to play, the job is his to keep. His camp at the outset, by his own admission, was inconsistent, but he performed well in the last two preseason games to gain the upper hand.
Scott Perunovich (48) is expected to make the 2023-24 Blues opening night roster after not being placed on waivers Sunday.MacEachern was signed to a two-year, one-way contract for forward depth and at the time they did, there was no sign Oskar Sundqvist would be available, and for Walker, he's done nothing wrong to be on the outside looking in, it simply came down to numbers for the Blues' Swiss Army Knife.
Chances are none of these skaters get claimed with other options available and teams being careful with the handling of their salary cap situation.
It'll be known if any get claimed by 1 p.m. (CT) Monday, and then the rosters will be finalized three hours later.
