Blues Make First Rounds of Training Camp Cuts

The St.Louis Blues have started to trim their training camp roster, sending four forwards back down to their junior teams (ask Pierre McGuire if you have any questions at all regarding junior hockey). From Jeremy Rutherford’s report in the Post-Distpatch:

The Blues reduced their roster to 53 on Tuesday by sending three players back to their junior hockey clubs: forwards Jordan Kyrou (Sarnia) and Filip Helt (Sarnia) and Adam Musil (Red Deer).

More cuts are expected overnight, as the Blues plan to be around 37 players for Thursday's practice.

"In the scrimmage tomorrow, we'll be running with seven lines, 12 defensemen and fourth goalies," Hitchcock said. "We'll take that through the weekend and then our next cut-down will be on Sunday.

Two players expected to be around after another round of cuts are forward Kenny Agostino and defenseman Kevin Tansey.

Agostino, who signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Blues in July, has six points in two preseason games.

"We didn't know anything about Agostino," Hitchcock said. "He's had a big camp, now the challenge is the big boys are here, can you keep it up? But he's had a big camp. He's more than held his own."

The team has also assigned forward Glenn Gawdin back down to the Swift Current Broncos of the WHL. The notable exception was preseason stand-out Kenny Agostino, who notched an impressive six points over two games against Columbus and Dallas. The early cuts for the younger junior players were hardly a surprise, but it’ll be interesting to see how far some of the more highly-touted prospects and newer PTO additions can get.