- Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The addition of Troy Brouwer and Kyle Brodziak, and the subtraction of T.J. Oshie, will give the Blues a different look up front, but it won’t be the only new look. Paul Stastny will move into the top-six.
“Our determination is, it’s in one area,” Hitchcock said. “It’s on Steen and Schwartz and which center do they play with … whether they play with Stastny or Lehtera? That’s the one experiment that we’ll have in training camp.”
The Blues have thought about moving David Backes to the right wing.
“We’re certainly thinking about it,” Hitchcock said. “I think where we play David now depends on (Dmitrij) Jaskin, (Ty) Rattie and (Robby) Fabbri. How they do in camp and what level of play we think they can arrive at will determine how much we play David on the right wing.
“I can tell you right now, (Backes) is going to play more right wing than he’s played since I got here. Whether he’s a full-time player there or not, we don’t know yet. That depends on those three young kids.”
So, if none of Jaskin, Rattie, or Fabbri are top-six ready, Backes would play on the right side. If they are ready, Backes could be their third line center. The Blues third line could then look like Backes with Brouwer and Berglund.
- Michael Russo of the Star Tribune: UFA defenseman Jordan Leopold said that things have been “pretty quiet.” The soon to be 35-year old sounds like someone who knows the end of his career could be close. With the Wild re-signing Nate Prosser earlier this month, decreasing the chances of the Wild being able to re-sign Leopold.
“We’ll see what ends up happening,” he said. “I don’t think things will pick up again until maybe August. As a player, you want to know what’s going on. But you just have to wait and see what happens.”
