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St. Louis Blues Recall Vadim Zherenko

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The St. Louis Blues have recalled Vadim Zherenko under emergency conditions, sending Joel Hofer back to the Springfield Thunderbirds. The young netminder will serve as the backup for Jordan Binnington in tonight’s finale.

Zherenko, 22, is in his first season of North American pro hockey, after being selected 208th overall in 2019. He posted an impressive .918 save percentage in 24 appearances with the Thunderbirds, forming an excellent tandem with Hofer and taking the club to the Calder Cup playoffs.

With seeding still on the line for Springfield, and a big back-to-back-to-back situation coming this weekend to finish their season, Hofer will prepare for tomorrow’s AHL contest.

That’s to the benefit of Zherenko, who will get another day of NHL pay while he sits on the bench. This is the second call-up of his career after a short stint on the roster earlier this month. The young netminder will have to wait to make his debut, but it already looks like he has a rather promising future—especially for a seventh-round pick.

St. Louis Blues Recall Three Players

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The St. Louis Blues are down to their final two games of the season, and will not be making the playoffs this year. They don’t play again until Wednesday and close out their season with games on consecutive nights against the Dallas Stars. According to Lou Korac of NHL.com, it appears they will be adding some reinforcements to the lineup to give a trio of prospects a taste of NHL action before the season comes to a close. The Blues have announced Joel Hofer, Tyler Tucker and Hugh McGing have all been called up from the Springfield Thunderbirds.

  • Hofer is a 22-year-old goaltender who was drafted in the fourth round of the 2018 NHL Draft. He has had a solid season with the Thunderbirds, posting a 2.57 GAA to go with a .918 SV% and a 25-15-5 record in 45 contests. He has also played five NHL games this season where he put up a 2.79 GAA and a .915 SV%, showing some promise in limited duty. The Blues need to find a solution in goal with Jordan Binnington signed long term but struggling and Thomas Greiss a pending unrestricted free agent this summer. Hofer has played well enough this season to show he could be the goaltender of the future in St. Louis.
  • Tucker was a seventh-round pick of the Blues in 2018 and has split this season between St. Louis and Springfield. The 6-foot-1 and 204 pound defenseman has put up three goals and 21 points in 39 AHL games while playing a steady defensive game as well. He has been called up already this season, compiling 24 NHL games and scoring one goal and four points. The 23 year old will look to show he can compete for a roster spot next season, even though the Blues have seven NHL defenders signed through 2023-24.
  • McGing was a fifth-round pick in the 2018 NHL Draft and is yet to make his NHL debut. The 24-year-old forward is in his third AHL season and has scored 15 goals and 35 points in 68 games for the Thunderbirds. He may get a chance to play in his first NHL game with the Blues playing out the string later this week.

Martin Frk Linked To Swiss League

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Martin Frk has consistently been one of the top-scoring threats in the AHL for the better part of the last decade.  However, it appears that there’s a chance he’ll be heading elsewhere for next season as Blick’s Stephan Roth reports that the winger could be joining EV Zug in the Swiss NLA for 2023-24.  No agreement has been finalized at this time.

The 29-year-old signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Blues last summer, a contract that guaranteed him $560K in total salary which is quite high for an AHL player.  However, St. Louis has yet to bring Frk up this season.  Instead, he has spent the full campaign with AHL Springfield, notching 30 goals and 34 assists in 64 games, good for tenth in the league in scoring.

Barring a recall in the final week, Frk’s streak of six straight years of seeing NHL action will come to an end.  He has 124 appearances at the top level with decent numbers of 20 goals and 21 assists but hasn’t been able to lock down a full-time role.  With his role now seemingly set as a high-end minor league scorer, the time might be right for Frk to try something new and see how things fare for him overseas.

St. Louis Blues Assign Dmitri Samorukov, Vadim Zherenko To AHL

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The St. Louis Blues have assigned defenseman Dmitri Samorukov and goaltender Vadim Zherenko to their AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds, the team announced Sunday.

With the Blues out of action until next Wednesday and only two games left on their regular-season schedule, the transaction is purely a paper one to save the Blues some actual dollars. Springfield has three games left this season, but all come after the Blues wrap up their regular season on April 13.

Samorukov, 23, was acquired by the Blues from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Klim Kostin in October 2022. In his two-game stint with the Blues this month, his first games with the team since the trade, he registered a minor penalty and a -1 rating. This season, the Volgograd, Russia, product has posted 20 points (four goals, 16 assists) and 26 penalty minutes in 66 games for the Thunderbirds.

Zherenko, 22, saw the first recall of his NHL career this month when St. Louis added him on an emergency basis due to Thomas Greiss’ season-ending injury. The 208th overall selection in the 2019 NHL Draft, Zherenko has played in 24 games for the Thunderbirds during his first season in North America, posting a 10-8-3 record along with a 2.96 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage. He didn’t appear in a game on his recall, though, as Jordan Binnington has made four straight starts since Greiss played his last game of the year on April 1.

Sending down Zherenko leaves the Blues without a second goalie on their NHL roster. With no organizational action through St. Louis’ next game, expect the Blues to recall Zherenko (and possibly Samorukov, pending the health of Robert Bortuzzo) again next Wednesday for their final two games of the season.

Robert Bortuzzo Away From Team Until Sunday

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  • Lou Korac of NHL.com reports that St. Louis Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo is currently away from the team. Korac mentions Bortuzzo had a family matter to attend to in Toronto and will be back with the Blues on Sunday. Bortuzzo has also missed the team’s last five games while dealing with an upper-body injury but as Korac notes, he has not been ruled out of a pair of games next week against the Dallas Stars that will bring the Blues season to a close.

Thomas Greiss Out For The Rest Of The Season

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The St. Louis Blues have announced that goaltender Thomas Greiss will be out for the remainder of the season with a lower body injury. Greiss played in 21 games for the Blues and will finish the season with a 7-10-0 record to go with a .895 save percentage and a 3.64 GAA. He underwent a procedure this past Monday and it was being speculated that it would sideline him until the end of the year.

Greiss was signed in the offseason as a backup to Jordan Binnington and struggled in his first season with the Blues. It was his 14th season in the NHL and his second season in a row where he put up a save percentage under .900.

Greiss had a tremendous five year run with the New York Islanders from 2015-2020 which saw him win 101 games and put-up a save percentage of .915. However, by the time Greiss signed in St. Louis late last summer there was talk that he nearly retired due to a lack of interest in his services.

Now given his struggles the past two seasons it seems possible that the 37-year-old could hang up his skates after this season. It’ll be interesting to see what Greiss does, there remains a possibility that he could still find work as a backup, given how thin the free agent goaltending market will be this summer.

Robert Thomas Back Skating With St. Louis Blues

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Some good news for the St. Louis Blues as they enter the final week of the regular season. Lou Korac of NHL.com is reporting that Robert Thomas is back skating today at the team’s optional skate. Thomas has missed the last five games with an upper body injury but took a step towards returning as he did some drills with Blues assistant coach Steve Ott this morning.

Thomas had started to heat up just before his injury with three points in the two games prior to getting hurt. Before that he had been on a cold streak going pointless in four straight. Thomas has been streaky this year putting up points in bunches and then going cold for a handful of games. Despite this, he still has 19 goals and 63 points in 70 games this year.

The Blues have just three games left in the regular season, so it is not yet known whether Thomas will return before the Blues play game 82. St. Louis is already officially eliminated from the playoffs so there is little rush to bringing him back too soon, especially with his eight year $65MM dollar extension kicking in next season.

St. Louis will be an interesting team to watch this offseason. The team has been visibly frustrated with the play of goaltender Jordan Binnington, their defense is old and could use an injection of youth, and they’ve got a solid group of forwards led by Thomas and Jordan Kyrou. They aren’t that far removed from their 2019 Stanley Cup and will likely be looking to push for the playoffs again in 2023-24.

St. Louis Blues Recall Dmitri Samorukov

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The St. Louis Blues have made a roster swap this morning, recalling Dmitri Samorukov under emergency conditions. Matthew Kessel, who recently made his NHL debut, has been returned to the Springfield Thunderbirds.

Samorukov, 23, was acquired from the Edmonton Oilers in the deal that saw Klim Kostin sent out of town at the beginning of the season. Should he enter the Blues lineup, it would be his St. Louis debut and just the second game of the young defenseman’s career.

The 6’3″ Samorukov was a third-round pick in 2017 and is on a one-year, one-way contract worth $775K. He’ll be a restricted free agent this summer, so a late-season showcase might be valuable for his negotiations.

Kessel, meanwhile, signed last spring after his college career ended and had played well enough for the Thunderbirds that he earned a call-up. The 22-year-old averaged 15 minutes in his two NHL contests and recorded three shots on net.

Injury Notes: Kane, Harpur, Buchnevich

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Before their game, tonight against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Andrew Crane of the New York Post reports that trade deadline acquisition Patrick Kane will be a “game-time” decision. On Tuesday, Kane took a maintenance day but participated in an individual practice this morning.

At the beginning of this season, it was clear that Kane was not playing at the same speed as in previous seasons. There were many pundits noting an apparent hip injury, but Kane was simply not living up to expectations even on a last-place Chicago Blackhawks team. But on an expiring contract, and his team in the basement, Kane was set to be one of the most sought-after deadline acquisitions.

He made his interest in the Rangers known, but after their acquisition of Vladimir Tarasenko from the St.Louis Blues, Kane being traded at all was now in question. The veteran phenom re-sparked the Rangers’ interest, scoring three goals and seven assists in his last four games in Chicago.

Although he got off to a slow start in New York, he has refound his form primarily playing on the second line, scoring ten points in 16 games. If he is still dealing with a nagging hip, it will be vital for the Rangers to give him the rests he needs, as Kane has been an incredible playoff performer in the past.

Other injury notes:

  • In the same report, Crane also mentions that the only other player on the ice with Kane at practice was defenseman Ben Harpur. Shortly after the season began, the Rangers signed Harpur to a 1-year, $750K contract. Primarily playing as a depth defenseman, Harpur has skated in 40 games for the Rangers this year, posting six points and a 0 +/-. Almost three months to the date that he signed this year’s contract with New York, the team signed him to a 2-year, $1.575MM extension.
  • Although this is a season to forget for the organization, Lou Korac of NHL.com announces that Pavel Buchnevich will return to the Blues tomorrow night when they take on the Rangers. Buchnevich has been a bright spot on a struggling St.Louis team this year, scoring 25 goals and 41 assists, good for second on the team in scoring. Buchnevich has found himself on the injured reserve a handful of times this year, missing a total of 19 games so far for the Blues.

 

Latest On Blues' Offseason Plans

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TSN’s Pierre LeBrun offered some new developments on today’s Insider Trading program, developments specifically regarding the priorities of three teams in possession of multiple 2023 first-round picks: the Columbus Blue Jackets, St. Louis Blues, and Montreal Canadiens.

Another team reported to be listening to trade offers for spare first-round picks is the St. Louis Blues, who own the New York Rangers* and Toronto Maple Leafs’ 2023 first-rounders from the Vladimir Tarasenko and Ryan O’Reilly trades, respectively. Since the Blues have over $16MM in contract extensions kicking in this summer for core players and key veterans such as Colton Parayko, Justin Faulk, Brayden Schenn, and Torey Krug (among others) still under contract for a few more years, a full rebuild may not be on the table for GM Doug Armstrong.

So since a prospect drafted late in the first round may not make an impact for the Blues until the second half of the 2020s, it’s definitely reasonable for the Blues’ front office to prioritize dealing those late first-rounders for up-and-coming players who are closer to NHL-ready.

*Note: the 2023 first-rounder the Blues acquired from New York in the Tarasenko deal is actually conditional, meaning the Blues could technically receive the Dallas Stars’ first-rounder (owned by the Rangers due to the Nils Lundkvist trade) if the Stars’ first-rounder ends up later in the draft order than the Rangers’ pick.

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