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Ryan O’Reilly Placed In COVID Protocol

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The Chicago Blackhawks aren’t the only team dealing with COVID-related absences. Today, the St. Louis Blues announced that Ryan O’Reilly has joined Brandon Saad in the COVID protocol while recalling Dakota Joshua from the AHL to take his place on the roster.

The team did not confirm whether O’Reilly has tested positive, but head coach Craig Berube did tell reporters that the captain is expected to miss at least ten days, suggesting that he has a confirmed case. The veteran center played 19:04 last night against the Los Angeles Kings, registering a point in the 3-0 win. Saad meanwhile hasn’t played since last Wednesday, and has now also been moved to the non-roster list.

St. Louis is scheduled to take on the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night, a team that both O’Reilly and Saad are very familiar with. Both played for Colorado in the past and will be sorely missed if they are unavailable to the Blues. The team is then scheduled to welcome the Blackhawks on Saturday, though with so many Chicago players on the COVID protocol, it’s unclear who will actually be on the ice for them.

Minor Transactions: 10/23/21

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A slow news day Saturday at the NHL level doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been movement in other parts of the hockey world. The season is in full swing at all tiers of the game, and movement at the minor and junior levels of the game is a constant. Here are some of today’s minor moves from around the hockey landscape.

  • The AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds have added a duo of youngsters to the squad, as the St. Louis Blues reassigned Keean Washkurak and Mathias Laferriere there from the ECHL’s Worcester Railers per the ECHL’s transactions page. The 20-year-old Washkurak was a Blues fifth-round selection in 2019 and will play his first full professional season in North America this year. He spent last season with HK Levice in the second-tier Slovakian league. Laferriere is a year older but will play his first professional season in 2021-22 after spending last season as an overage player with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in the QMJHL, scoring 39 points in 30 games.
  • The WHL’s Victoria Royals acquired hulking defenseman Anson McMaster via trade from the Winnipeg Ice today. McMaster, now 19, is a long shot to be drafted with just seven points in 80 career WHL games. Yet his 6′ 6″, 209-pound frame is appealing and makes him a candidate to succeed at the minor-league level when his junior career has concluded. The Alberta native enters his final year of junior eligibility next season.

Brandon Saad Ruled Out With COVID

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Another COVID Protocol case has popped up in the NHL, this time in St. Louis. The Blues have announced that forward Brandon Saad will be unavailable on Saturday due to COVID Protocol. Saad, as well as the entire Blues roster, is vaccinated. With Saad sidelined and Pavel Buchnevich suspended, the Blues will be without their two major off-season additions for their home opener against the L.A. Kings.

The Blues have not revealed the cause of Saad’s entry into the COVID Protocol. However, the fact that he has already been ruled out of a game that is 48 hours away would imply that he has tested positive.  This is the third positive test among a prominent player today alone, as Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele and Pittsburgh’s Jeff Carter have also been sidelined by COVID. It’s a sobering reminder that the pandemic is still a factor in the NHL this season.

As for Saad, the Blue’s newest addition is off to a hot start with a goal and an assist in his first three games. The talented forward has averaged 24 goals per 82 games over his career and was expected to help make up for the loss of Jaden Schwartz this summer. For the time being though, St. Louis will have to make do without him.

NHL Department Of Player Safety Suspends Pavel Buchnevich For Two Games

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The NHL Department of Player Safety announced Tuesday night that St. Louis Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich has been suspended two games for a headbutt to the Arizona Coyotes’ Lawson Crouse.

Per TSN’s Chris Johnston, Buchnevich is considered a repeat offender and forfeits $141,463.41 in salary over the course of the two-game suspension.

Buchnevich holds that repeat offender status due to a one-game suspension handed out in May 2021 for high-sticking Anthony Mantha of the Washington Capitals. It occurred during the New York Rangers’ first match against the Washington Capitals after the now infamous Tom Wilson incident, which Buchnevich was notably a victim of when Wilson delivered a punch to the head of Buchnevich while he was down on the ice.

The Blues have gotten good scoring distribution from throughout their lineup, and they’ll attempt to continue that in the absence of Buchnevich. Look for Jordan Kyrou and Jake Neighbours, two up-and-coming young wingers, to get more ice time with this hole in the lineup.

Minor Transactions: 10/19/21

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While a long list of NHL games caps off this Tuesday night, there was a lot of movement at lower levels of the North American hockey depth chart today. As NHL teams deal with a trend of injuries across the league, it carries a ripple effect across both the AHL and ECHL, forcing roster moves. Here are today’s minor transactions:

  • The AHL’s Bridgeport Islanders, affiliate of New York, have recalled forward Erik Brown from the ECHL’s Worcester Railers, per the Connecticut Post’s Michael Fornabaio. Brown has been a fringe AHL player since ending his collegiate career with the Rochester Institute of Technology, but the 26-year-old logged his first AHL point, an assist, in 13 games last year with Bridgeport. It was his first full professional season after missing the entirety of 2019-20.
  • The Chicago Wolves assigned goalie Beck Warm to the ECHL’s Norfolk Admirals today. Warm, who’s on a two-way NHL deal with the Carolina Hurricanes, will make his ECHL debut if he stays but already has one full professional season under his belt. An undrafted free agent, Warm impressed in 14 AHL games with Chicago last year, posting an 8-4-1 record and .914 save percentage. He’s been forced down the depth chart with the addition of NHL-experienced Alex Lyon into the organization as the team’s third goalie, however, and he could take a starting role in Norfolk.
  • The St. Louis Blues’ AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds, assigned forward Shawn Cameron to the ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits, per the ECHL’s transaction page for October 19. Cameron split last season between Greenville and the AHL’s Utica Comets, where he scored three points (including his first AHL goal) in 11 games. He fared much better in Greenville, notching 10 points in 23 games.

Pavel Buchnevich To Have Hearing With Department Of Player Safety

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The Department of Player Safety has been busy through the first week of the season, and it won’t stop now. St. Louis Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich will have a hearing today after an incident involving Arizona Coyotes forward Lawson Crouse.

Partway through the first period, the two came together in the corner and after the Coyotes forward delivered a cross-check, Buchnevich appeared to deliver a headbutt to the face of Crouse. The St. Louis forward was given a game misconduct and a match penalty–the latter of which comes with an automatic review from the DoPS–racking up 20 penalty minutes in one short lunge.

This isn’t the first headbutting controversy the league has dealt with in the early part of the season. Rasmus Andersson of the Calgary Flames was given a $5,000 fine for roughing when it was determined his play–which many believed included a headbutt–did not rise to the level of a suspension.

That won’t be the case here, as Buchnevich is expected to be suspended.

Could David Perron Take Another Team-Friendly Contract?

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  • In a recent reader chat, Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested that he thinks Blues winger David Perron could take another team-friendly deal around the $4MM mark if he has a similar showing to last season. While he could likely garner more on the open market, the 33-year-old hasn’t hidden his desire to be in St. Louis, signing back there each time he has reached free agency.  In order for him to remain there, Perron will need to take a below-market deal with St. Louis having over $72MM in commitments to just 14 players for next season, per CapFriendly, not leaving much wiggle room to fill out the rest of the roster.

Michael Frolik Signs In Switzerland

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After attending the St. Louis Blues training camp on a professional tryout deal, veteran forward Michael Frolik has opted to continue his playing career in Switzerland. His new team, Lausanne HC, announced a two-year deal for Frolik today.

Considering Frolik will be 35 at the conclusion of this contract, it’s likely that he’s played his last game in the NHL. If that’s the case, Frolik carved out a role for himself as an extremely solid middle-six player for a good number of years at the NHL level.

Drafted tenth overall by the Florida Panthers in 2006, Frolik broke into the league in 2008-09 at age 20, finishing tenth in Calder Trophy voting with 21 goals and 45 points in 79 games. He was dealt to the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2010-11 season, where he’d eventually win a Stanley Cup championship with them in 2013. He was a valuable depth player on that run, scoring 10 points in 23 games.

However, Frolik didn’t top 10 goals or 20 points either of the last two seasons. Signing a deal with the Montreal Canadiens last year, Frolik spent the majority of the season on the team’s taxi squad. When he was in the lineup he went pointless, tallying nothing in eight games.

But over his career, Frolik was a consistent bet to score 10-20 goals. He never really lived up to tenth overall pick potential or the expectation he set for himself early on in Florida, but still appeared in 858 NHL games, complementing it with 159 goals and 384 points.

Injury Notes: Boeser, Severson, Perron, Hoffman

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While Vancouver fans are relieved to see Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes back in action after they signed new contracts to stay with the team, they’ll have to wait a bit longer to see one of their young core members debut this season. Head coach Travis Green said Friday morning that it’s doubtful Brock Boeser plays in that night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers. Boeser has been on the shelf with an undisclosed injury since October 2. He was expected to only miss one week, but that timeline has passed and his status is now day-to-day. In his absence, it appears rookie Vasily Podkolzin will now get a look on the second line with Pettersson and J.T. Miller.

Some other injury notes from around the league:

  • New Jersey Devils head coach Lindy Ruff notes that defenseman Damon Severson is progressing and could play in New Jersey’s game next Tuesday against the Seattle Kraken. The Devils play their season opener tonight, meaning Severson might only be on the shelf for one game. Severson suffered an undisclosed injury on October 4 and has been listed as day-to-day since then.
  • The Montreal Canadiens could see a big free-agent addition make his debut soon. Head coach Dominique Ducharme says that winger Mike Hoffman could be ready for the team’s Tuesday or Thursday night games next week, but he’ll miss Saturday’s tilt against the New York Rangers. That’s about right on time for Hoffman, who was projected to miss four weeks with a lower-body injury suffered in late September.
  • With the St. Louis Blues’ season opener looming Saturday in Colorado, they could be without forward David Perron, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Jim Thomas. Perron was absent from the Blues’ practice today but was seen at the facility wearing street clothes. Head coach Craig Berube called it a “maintenance day” for Perron, who’s questionable for the game with an undisclosed injury.

Blues Sign James Neal

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It was a successful tryout for winger James Neal in St. Louis as the Blues announced that they’ve inked the veteran to a one-year contract.  The deal is worth the league minimum of $750K.

In his prime, the 34-year-old was one of the more consistent scorers in the NHL, scoring more than 20 goals in ten straight seasons.  However, as he has gotten older, his production has started to slow down.  He had a bounce-back year in 2019-20 in Edmonton with 19 goals in 55 games but he wasn’t able to maintain that same level of production last season.  Instead, he had just five goals and five assists in 29 games while clearing waivers and spending time on the taxi squad.  Rather than keep him on their roster for the remaining two years of his contract, the Oilers decided to buy him out, paying him $1.916MM over each of the next four years for him to go elsewhere.

After being unable to secure a guaranteed contract in free agency, Neal accepted a PTO offer from the Blues who have a need for some cheap role players given their salary cap situation as they’re going to be quite close to the cap ceiling when fully healthy.  He made the most of his exhibition action, scoring four goals in five games to lead the team in that department while sitting one off the league-wide lead in the preseason.

While his best days are behind him now, Neal represents a low-risk pickup for St. Louis.  If he’s able to contribute some offense in the bottom six, they’ll be content with that and if he winds up struggling, they can send him to the minors (he’d have to clear waivers first) and clear the entire cap hit off their books.  Neal sits six goals away from 300 for his NHL career and he should have a chance to get to that milestone at some point this season.

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