The St. Louis Blues bolstered up their lineup this offseason, both at the forward and defense positions. While Ryan Suter is no longer here, Cam Fowler should take a bigger role this season, and the trade for Logan Mailloux takes up a spot on the right side.
Where does that leave Tyler Tucker?
Tucker has already defied the odds by even making the AHL (let alone NHL) as a seventh-round pick. The 200th selection in the 2018 NHL Draft slowly worked his way up the ranks over the years and has now played a total of 90 games in his NHL career.
However, Tucker still might just be a guy whose role is best served as the seventh defenseman or someone who can be called up from the AHL in a pinch. At least that's what he's done so far.
The left-shot defenseman can play both sides, which helps, and last season he set a new career high with 38 NHL games played as compared to 19 in the AHL. That helped him to career-high marks in goals (4), assists (6), and points (10) while averaging 14:35 per game.
So what can we expect from Tucker this season?
While he's pencilled in on the third pair by some projections, he may have to beat out fellow 25-year-old blueliner Matt Kessel for playing time. It helps that Tucker is left-handed while Kessel is right-handed -- especially with Colton Parayko, Justin Faulk, and Mailloux all right-handed as well.
Tucker's versatility should give him the leg up over Kessel, but it could all be determined in training camp and early parts of the upcoming season.
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