None of the St. Louis Blues put on waivers on Sunday were claimed, and in a sense, there's a bit of a sigh of relief there.
The Blues exposed goalie Malcolm Subban, defenseman Calle Rosen and forwards Nathan Walker and Mackenzie MacEachern in order to establish their 23-man roster set for 4 p.m. (CT) on Monday and all made it through the waiver wire, and each was assigned to Springfield of the American Hockey League.
It was pretty clear that Subban, 29, would have needed to play out of his mind to supplant Joel Hofer as Jordan Binnington's goalie tandem partner, but for the versatile Rosen, 29, who played as consistently as any Blues defenseman in a forgettable season last year when he put up career-highs in goals (eight), assists (10), points (18) and games (49), it came down to a numbers game, and the fact that the Blues didn't want to expose Scott Perunovich to waivers.
"I don't think it's one thing or another," Berube said regarding Rosen. "I think 'Perun' showed us this year that he's taken another step. He's got some pretty good ability offensively. We felt that he did enough in camp and throughout camp, it got better and better as it went along. Decisions have to be made."
Another decision that had to be made was taking Alexandrov as the extra forward over Walker and MacEachern.
It came right down to the end of training camp with the Blues electing to only keep one forward and two extra defensemen.
"I thought the game he played in Dallas (last Thursday) and then he followed it up with another good game here (Satuday against Chicago)," Berube said regarding Alexandrov. "We were waiting for him to show us what he was capable of doing and I thought he did that the last two games."
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