- The Blues announced that defenseman Scott Perunovich suffered a lower-body injury during today’s overtime victory over Los Angeles. The 25-year-old has played in a career-best 31 games this season, notching a dozen assists including two today. There’s no word yet on how much time, if any, Perunovich will miss.
- Still with the Blues, they’ve recalled blueliner Tyler Tucker from his conditioning assignment, relays NHL.com’s Lou Korac (Twitter link). The 23-year-old played in six games with AHL Springfield while in the minors. Tucker, who is waiver-eligible, has been limited to just 15 games with St. Louis this season, collecting two points while averaging 12:31 per game.
Blues Rumors
Justin Faulk Out Until After All-Star Break
- After being placed on the injured reserve on January 16th with a lower-body injury, the St.Louis Blues will be expecting forward Kasperi Kapanen back after the All-Star break (X Link). As one of the more prominent depth offensive pieces on the Blues’ roster, Kapanen has struggled a bit over the course of the season, scoring four goals and 13 points in 42 games on the year.
[SOURCE LINK]
Scandella Might Be Blues' Best Trade Candidate
The Blues are one of the teams that are still in the mix for a Wild Card spot but even if they fall out of the race, Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic wonders (subscription link) if it could be a quiet deadline as a seller. Their most prominent rentals up front are the struggling Kasperi Kapanen and Jakub Vrana, who is currently playing in the minors; neither would likely have much of a market. However, Rutherford suggests that blueliner Marco Scandella could be the likeliest player to garner attention around the league if he isn’t signed to an extension first. The 33-year-old has had a very limited role this season but can still kill penalties and is the type of depth player that playoff teams will often look to add for injury insurance purposes. That said, at $3.275MM, St. Louis would certainly have to pay half of that to facilitate any sort of move while an extension, if one was to be reached, should check in closer to the $1MM mark.
Blues Place Kasperi Kapanen On IR, Out 4 Weeks
Blues winger Kasperi Kapanen will be out a minimum of four weeks with a lower-body injury, the team announced Wednesday. He has been placed on injured reserve.
In a corresponding transaction, the team brought up veteran forward Adam Gaudette from AHL Springfield. The 27-year-old leads all AHLers with 24 goals in 37 games.
The speedy winger has struggled heavily in his first full season with the Blues. Things were looking up for Kapanen after St. Louis claimed him off waivers from the Penguins partway through the 2022-23 campaign, closing out the year with 8-6–14 in 23 games. This season, despite a minimal reduction in usage, he’s notched just 4-9–13 in 42 games, his worst points per game pace since his rookie campaign with the Maple Leafs in 2017-18.
A long-term injury now complicates things further. Kapanen will miss at least ten games and potentially more if his four-week evaluation doesn’t clear him to return.
Blues interim head coach Drew Bannister confirmed today that Gaudette will directly replace Kapanen in the lineup against the Capitals tomorrow, meaning another recent AHL call-up, Nathan Walker, likely sits as a healthy scratch. The Blues are carrying a full 23-player roster, including defenseman Tyler Tucker, who’s suiting up for Springfield on a conditioning loan.
Gaudette didn’t see any NHL action last season, limited exclusively to minor-league play for the first time in his pro career. After notching 34 points in 40 games for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies while under contract with the Maple Leafs, Gaudette found himself in Springfield after his contract was included in the trade return for Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly last season. Tomorrow will be his first NHL game since April 29, 2022, with the Ottawa Senators.
Morning Notes: Alexandrov, Bussi, Ovechkin
The St. Louis Blues have announced that they’ve recalled forward Nikita Alexandrov from his conditioning assignment with the Springfield Thunderbirds of the American Hockey League. Alexandrov was loaned to Springfield back on January 4th after he had been a healthy scratch for ten straight games with the Blues.
Alexandrov made the most of the demotion and was very productive with the Thunderbirds as he tallied two goals and five assists in seven games. The 23-year-old has no points in 10 NHL games this season with St. Louis and is a -2. He has averaged 7:28 of ice time per game with the Blues and has struggled badly at even strength.
In other morning notes:
- The Boston Bruins have announced that they’ve returned goaltender Brandon Bussi to the Providence Bruins of the AHL. Bussi had been recalled on an emergency basis back on January 11th, although he didn’t see any game action during his recall. The 25-year-old has put together an impressive AHL career thus far but has yet to see any NHL action despite being recalled on a number of occasions. This year has been a struggle for Bussi as he has seen his save percentage fall dramatically to just .901 on the season while his goals-against average has climbed to 2.94.
- Sammi Silber of The Hockey News is reporting that Washington Capitals star forward Alex Ovechkin will be a game-time decision tonight when they take on the Anaheim Ducks. It will make the fifth straight game that Ovechkin is a game-time decision as he tries to battle through a lower-body injury that has kept him out of the lineup since January 11th. Ovechkin has missed two games at this point but did take the entire morning skate with the Capitals today, although he sat out of the power-play reps. Ovechkin has just eight goals this season after tallying 42 last year. The 38-year-old had been heating up leading up to the injury with a goal and five assists in his last five games.
Blues Loan Tyler Tucker To AHL On Conditioning Assignment
The Blues have assigned defenseman Tyler Tucker to AHL Springfield on a conditioning loan, Blues president of hockey operations and GM Doug Armstrong announced today.
Tucker, 23, has not played since facing the Panthers on December 21. He has been a healthy scratch in nine straight games.
The 2018 seventh-round pick signed a two-year extension worth $1.6MM last June, shortly before reaching restricted free agency. He had put up strong scoring chance suppression numbers in a 26-game stint while playing depth minutes last season, earning himself a spot on the team’s roster out of training camp to begin 2023-24. His pairing with current Springfield blueliner Calle Rosén led all Blues in expected goals against per 60 minutes last season with 2.32, according to MoneyPuck data.
Tucker scored a goal in the Blues’ season opener against the Stars, but he struggled to replicate last season’s shutdown effectiveness and came out of the lineup by the team’s sixth game of the season. After playing in St. Louis’ first five games, he’s been a healthy scratch in 26 out of 36 contests. Now most commonly paired with veteran Marco Scandella, that pairing has controlled just 37.3% of expected goals when on the ice. Per MoneyPuck, that’s the seventh-worst in the NHL this season among pairings with at least 100 minutes together. Scandella has fared slightly better when paired with the more offensively-inclined Scott Perunovich, boasting a 42.8% expected goals share.
Through his 15 games this season, Tucker has one goal, one assist and 22 penalty minutes with ten shots on goal. He’s averaged 12:31 per game, down from last season’s 14:39.
By consenting to a conditioning loan, Tucker will remain on assignment to Springfield for up to 14 days. He will remain on the Blues’ active roster and count against the salary cap. After 14 days, the Blues must recall Tucker from his loan or, if they wish to keep him in Springfield, place him on waivers.
The Blues also have center Nikita Alexandrov in Springfield on a conditioning loan. That means while their roster size is at the maximum of 23, only 21 players are eligible to suit up in an NHL game. Alexandrov has four days remaining on his loan, which has been successful with two goals and five assists in six games.
Morning Notes: Kakko, Hodgson, Sobotka
New York Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette has announced that winger Kaapo Kakko is set to make his return from a lower-body injury on Sunday. He has been out of the lineup since November 27th, missing 21 games. The Rangers placed Kakko on long-term injured reserve on November 28th, alongside linemate Filip Chytil, who is also progressing from an expected concussion.
Kakko was off to a slow start before his injury, managing just two goals and one assist in 20 games. He’s continuing to search for his groove in the NHL, scoring a career-high 40 points in 82 games last season. It was only the second time that Kakko has played in more than 50 games in a single season since making his debut in 2019-20.
The New York Rangers have also sent Jake Leschyshyn back to the minor leagues, after bringing him up on an emergency recall on Tuesday. He appeared in one game with the top club, setting a -1 in six minutes of ice time in New York’s Thursday night loss to the St. Louis Blues.
More notes from around the league:
- 328-game veteran of the NHL Cody Hodgson is reportedly eyeing a return to professional hockey, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Hodgson had to step away from the game in 2016 after being diagnosed with malignant hyperthermia. But he’s returned to the ice, skating routinely in an effort to get back on the ice. The 33-year-old was drafted 10th overall in the 2008 NHL Draft – a part of a First Round that’s yielded 12 different players with 700 or more games played.
- Long-time St. Louis Blues winger Vladimir Sobotka has signed a one-year extension with HC Sparta Praha of the Czechia Extraliga. He’s a 528-game veteran of the NHL, recording 171 points, 362 penalty minutes, and a -22 over his career. Sobotka has been productive in Czechia, with 19 points in 27 games this season, bringing his totals up to 121 points in 148 games with Sparta Praha since joining the team in 2020-21.
Blues Activate Justin Faulk, Assign Jakub Vrána To AHL
The Blues activated Justin Faulk from injured reserve on Friday afternoon, per a team announcement. To remain compliant with the 23-player limit on the active roster, the team returned winger Jakub Vrána to AHL Springfield in a corresponding transaction.
Faulk, 31, will likely play tomorrow against the Bruins. He missed the last five games and 13 days with a lower-body injury, during which span the Blues went 3-2-0 and stayed in the hunt for a Wild Card spot in the Western Conference.
With today being the halfway point of the 2023-24 NHL schedule, Faulk is coincidentally at the exact halfway mark of the seven-year, $45.5MM extension he signed with the Blues that began in the 2020-21 season. He’s in his fifth season as a Blue since coming over from the Hurricanes in a late-2019 offseason trade, accumulating 41 goals, 114 assists, 155 points, and a 48.3% expected goals share at even strength, per Hockey Reference, in 318 games.
This season has been average for Faulk’s standards. Playing in 35 straight games to start the season before sustaining the injury late last month, Faulk had scored twice and added 15 assists for 17 points, or 0.49 points per game. That’s just north of his 0.47 career points per game mark. He’s again shouldered heavy minutes with average shot quality control metrics, averaging 22:25 per game while controlling 49% of expected goals at even strength, according to Hockey Reference data.
He’s most commonly factored in on a pairing with Torey Krug this season, which has been a mainstay since the latter joined the Blues in free agency in 2020. Their 537 minutes together is the 12th most of any defensive pairing this season, per MoneyPuck. That means 23-year-old call-up Matthew Kessel, who’s played in five straight games alongside Krug in Faulk’s absence, will likely be a healthy scratch against Krug’s former team this weekend.
Notably, though, the Blues chose to keep Kessel on the active roster instead of returning him to Springfield with Faulk back in the lineup. The 2020 fifth-round pick is still waiver-exempt, so there’s no risk of losing him on the wire by keeping him around as a healthy scratch. The 6-foot-3, 203-pound right-shot blueliner is still looking for his first NHL point but posted decent possession metrics in a small sample alongside Krug, averaging 17:34 per game. Nearly all those minutes game at even strength, as Kessel saw less than a minute combined of ice time on the power play and penalty kill during his stint in the lineup.
Heading down to the minors instead is Vrána, who does not yet need waivers again after he cleared them nearly one month ago. The 27-year-old posted over a point per game in Springfield after being sent down, including scoring four times in his last five games before the Blues summoned him back to the roster eight days ago.
Unfortunately, the 2014 first-round pick was unable to convert that momentum into regaining a full-time NHL role. He played two games during his callup, the latter of which was a poor performance in a 5-1 loss to the Panthers on Tuesday that saw him post a -3 rating in just over ten minutes of ice time. Interim head coach Drew Bannister scratched Vrána in yesterday’s 5-2 win over the Metropolitan Division-leading Rangers, allowing Sammy Blais to re-enter the lineup against his former team.
Vrána is in the final season of a three-year, $15.75MM contract carrying a $5.25MM signed with the Red Wings following an arbitration filing in 2021. The Blues only have him at a $2.625MM cap hit after trading for him with 50% salary retention by Detroit, but that still exceeds this season’s buried threshold of $1.15MM. Thus, the Blues are still on the hook for $1.475MM against the cap when Vrána is stashed in the minors.
Blues Sign Nathan Walker To Two-Year Extension
The Blues have agreed to a two-year, one-way extension with depth winger Nathan Walker, per a team release. Walker’s new deal carries the league minimum salary of $775K each season and keeps him from hitting unrestricted free agency this summer.
Walker, 29, will remain in St. Louis through the 2025-26 season. The first Australian national in league history is now in his eighth season, having played NHL games every year since debuting with the Capitals in 2017-18. A third-round pick of the Capitals in 2014 after suiting up for their AHL affiliate in Hershey, Walker immediately signed his entry-level contract and spent most of the next five seasons in the Capitals organization aside from a two-game stint with the Oilers, including one appearance in the team’s run to the 2018 Stanley Cup.
After reaching Group VI UFA status, Walker inked a two-year deal with the Blues in July 2019. He’s stayed in the organization ever since, racking up 13 goals and 13 assists for 26 points in 101 games, averaging 10:55 per game. Added to his career regular-season totals with Washington and Edmonton, Walker has 14 goals and 28 points in 113 NHL appearances.
He’s primarily been a tweener player for most of his career, always seeing significant AHL time but consistently finding himself in the mix for NHL call-ups. That changed last season, however, as Walker spent the entire campaign on the NHL roster for the first time, recording two goals, eight assists and ten points in 56 games in a fourth-line/depth role.
It hasn’t been the same story this season, however. Walker cleared waivers on the day before the regular season began and returned to AHL Springfield, where he took the demotion in stride. His 16 assists and 29 points in 30 games are second on the team behind Matthew Peca and Adam Gaudette, respectively, leading the Blues to bring Walker back to the NHL when the calendar turned to 2024 last week. In the two games since his January 1 recall, Walker has one goal and a +1 rating, averaging 8:06 per game.
Walker will likely continue to intermittently factor in on the Blues’ fourth line throughout the deal. Extending him now makes it much less likely that a team will claim him on waivers if he ends up on the wire later this season, as a three-year term (including this season) would make a claim challenging for most teams looking for short-term help. He will be a UFA when his deal expires in the summer of 2026.
What Your Team Is Thankful For: St. Louis Blues
As the holiday season approaches, PHR will be taking a look at what teams are thankful for in 2023-24. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the St. Louis Blues.
Who are the Blues thankful for?
The Blues made the surprising decision to fire Craig Berube after a dismal 1-5 start to December. In his place, the Blues promoted their AHL team’s head coach – Drew Bannister. And while plenty is being made about the merit of Berube’s firing, there’s been no denying how effective Bannister has been in his new role. The Blues have gone 6-3-0 under Bannister, boosted by tremendous performances from Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou, who have 14 and 10 points in nine games under the new head coach respectively. The push from Bannister has been enough to begin lifting St. Louis out of the depths of the Central Division, with the team passing the Minnesota Wild for seventh place and only one point shy of the Arizona Coyotes’ for fifth in the division. That’s not exactly inspiring for a Blues fanbase that’s only missed the playoffs seven times since 1980 – but positive momentum is all fans can hope for after last season saw the Blues record their worst winning percentage since 2007-08.
But what’s more impressive is that this is Bannister’s first time coaching in the NHL in any capacity. The role comes after four years as a head coach in the AHL that saw Bannister take the Springfield Thunderbirds to the 2022 Calder Cup Championship. It wasn’t his first time reaching a league’s final either, taking the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds to the OHL Championship in 2018. The 49-year-old has proven effective at every level and works his way into head coaching roles quickly. With the early success of his new Blues lineup, there’s reason to think that Bannister could be geared up for a long NHL coaching career.
What are the Blues thankful for?
New and improved goaltending.
The Blues’ goaltending was a sore spot of their 2022-23 season, with both Jordan Binnington and then-backup Thomas Greiss recording save percentages below .900. The season before wasn’t much better either, as the team cycled through five different goalies and only saw true success from Ville Husso. But it seems the Blues are finally finding consistency in the net, with Joel Hofer serving as a tremendous backup to Binnington. Hofer has a .911 save percentage through 14 games this season. He allowed six goals in his first game of the season, though, and carries an even-more impressive .918 save percentage with that game excluded. Either way, he’s confidently shown what he can do at the top level after years of flirting with consistent NHL ice time. And the newfound reliability at backup has gone a long way towards taking the weight off of Binnington’s shoulders. The 30-year-old, former Stanley Cup winner is boasting a .902 save percentage through 27 games played. He’s also only on pace for 54 games this season, a step down from the 61 he played in last year, helping keep him fresher for longer. This also boosts the potency of a St. Louis crease that’s proven they have the ability to turn the tides, with Binnington’s 2018-19 surge carrying the Blues to their first Stanley Cup and Husso’s resurgence in 2021-22 helping force the Blues into the postseason despite a shaky year. With Hofer finally finding his footing in the NHL, it seems the Blues are once again primed with two dangerous goaltending talents.
What would the Blues be even more thankful for?
Patience from their stars.
An off-handed comment from Jordan Kyrou spread around the internet following Berube’s firing, with the top winger refusing to share thoughts on the move and simply saying, “I’ve got no comment, [Berube]’s not my coach anymore.” That remark was enough to earn Kyrou a sea of boos at the team’s next home game – a 4-2 win that saw Kyrou record an assist. The top winger shared a tearful apology after the game, saying, “It’s just tough, right? I love playing here. It’s tough to hear the fans booing me.”
Kyrou’s experience has underlined the amount of patience that the top Blues players have had to provide recently. St. Louis hockey has been defined by very frequent lineup changes over the last two seasons – changes that have required Pavel Buchnevich to step into a rare centerman role, Kevin Hayes to cope with seven different sets of wingers this season, and Thomas and Kyrou bearing through playing apart seemingly every other game. St. Louis is one of only 12 clubs to not feature a line that’s played more than 200 minutes together, with their top line of Thomas, Buchnevich, and Kyrou seeing only 187 minutes of ice time. The Blues’ top brass has held in through a lot, and should be nearing the end of strained days with new head coach Bannister figuring out a winning combination. But they’ll need continued patience and persistence from their stars if they want to complete their push for a playoff spot.
What should be on the Blues holiday wish list?
A top-nine forward.
The Blues have gone out of their way to try and add difference-makers into their top-nine for much of the last year. And while Kevin Hayes, Kasperi Kapanen, and Jakub Vrana have each been strong in their own ways, St. Louis still only has three forwards with 15-or-more points outside of their top line. The Blues could go a lot of different ways if they want to be buyers at the deadline, but a high-scoring winger to compliment Brayden Schenn’s second line could make a big impact on the Blues’ scoring abilities. There’s no shortage of talent available throughout the league, including San Jose’s Anthony Duclair or Vancouver’s Andrei Kuzmenko. The price on these players is sure to get muddy, especially considering both carry a cap hit north of $3MM, but adding a scoring touch could be the piece that elevates St. Louis back into playoff territory. The Blues rank sixth-to-last in goals-for this season.