The St. Louis Blues made a mildly surprising move by placing veteran forward Mathieu Joseph on waivers last Thursday.
Unsurprisingly, the veteran pugilist cleared, allowing him to report to the AHL. The move, however, wasn’t necessarily intended to dump Joseph. The move corresponded to the Blues’ efforts to retool.
And Joseph was kind of getting in the way.
As insider David Pagnotta noted, the Blues had been trying to trade Joseph. But the club just hasn’t found a suitor interested in the 29-year-old.
Joseph cleared today and has now been assigned to the AHL. The Blues will continue to try to find him a new home. https://t.co/XGLJw9YVx4
— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) February 27, 2026
It’s not hard to see why. Joseph has two goals and 11 points in 39 games this season, to go with his $2.95 million cap hit. That’s way too high for a fourth-liner.
That said, the Blues are still trying to do right by Joseph. They’re looking to put him in a position to succeed, even at this point in his career. A contender somewhere would ideally take a flyer on him. It could work if the Blues picked up the remainder of his salary this season.
Since Joseph will become a UFA in the summer, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the Blues to get something back for Joseph. In the best of cases, it would be another minor-league player or perhaps a seventh-round pick.
Blues might just hold onto Joseph for rest of the season
The likeliest outcome in this situation is for the Blues to hang on to Joseph for the remainder of the season. The probability of another team trading for the former fourth-round pick of the 2015 NHL Draft is slim.
If the Blues really wanted to be cool about the situation, they might not force Joseph to report to the AHL. As we’ve seen with other players and other clubs, the teams hold players’ feet to the fire for not reporting to the AHL.
There have been some other cases, like the Toronto Maple Leafs did with Ryan Reaves, where they didn’t actually force the player to report to the AHL. Instead, they let him sit, still getting paid, until they could figure something out.
At the moment, the Blues do get some cap relief by having Joseph in the AHL. Only $1.8 million of his $2.95 million cap hit currently counts against the team’s cap. So, that’s at least something the Blues could use to bring another piece in. While it doesn’t really matter this season, it’s at least something the Blues can utilize at the NHL trade deadline.