The St. Louis Blues finally filled one of their two open roster spots prior to facing the Vancouver Canucks. Their choice of player was a bit surprising though.
When the St. Louis Blues sent Beau Bennett down to the minor leagues, they ended up giving themselves two open roster spots. They initially made the strange choice of not filling any of those.
The initial reaction was the Patrik Berglund must be close to returning. Why bring up a player only to send them down if he is not close?
There is still no timetable on his return, though we still assume it is closer than not. We do know, now, that one of those roster spots has been filled.
The St. Louis Blues recalled Wade Megan from the Chicago Wolves. The choice is a bit odd though.
Megan is a fine player. It remains to be seen what kind of NHL player he can be.
He puts up good to great numbers in the AHL, or did last season anyway. He has yet to strike that gold in the NHL, though he does give a good effort. His lack of NHL production is not what makes the choice odd.
What makes the choice a bit strange is a couple different factors. The first of which is his waiver status.
Megan already had to clear waviers to be sent to the Wolves in the first place. If the Blues decide to send him back, you run the risk of losing him again.
If Megan does not figure into the team’s long-term plans, perhaps they do not care. Still, it seems foolish to continually run the risk of losing a good depth player for nothing at all.
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The other reason the choice is odd is Megan has not re-established himself at the AHL level. Usually you reward someone with a call up when they’ve been playing extremely well in the minors.
That is not the case with Megan at the moment. He’s not playing poorly, but in 10 games he only has three assists. Megan has yet to score a goal in 2017-18.
Of course, not all of that is in his control. Playing with the Wolves, they have little interest in giving Megan a bunch of playing time since they are no longer St. Louis’ affiliate.
Still, playing time cannot be the only excuse. Tage Thompson has four goals and seven points in 12 games. Klim Kostin has two goals and nine points in 15 games and Sammy Blais has five goals and nine points in eight games. Bennett has a goal and seven points in 7 AHL games and Ivan Barbashev has two goals and four points in eight games.
It should not be said that I am completely against Megan being brought up. I like his energy and tenacity.
He has a decent amount of skill to go with those attributes. He’s also a potential upgrade from the mediocrity we’ve seen on the third line.
It just seems like there were other players that had done a little more to earn the spot. It seems like the message gets a little muddled.
Next: Potential Line Combos When Berglund Returns
Guys are told to go to the minors and find their game. Some produce and are not rewarded and Megan has shown no signs of being the player he was in the AHL last season and gets a shot.
Megan had a good preseason and earned his spot initially. Hopefully he’s given more than a game’s worth of a chance this time around.