St. Louis Blues’ Nate Prosser Claimed on Waivers by Minnesota Wild
Nate Prosser‘s time with the St. Louis Blues was so short that the USA TODAY photo wiring service never even got a picture of him in a Blues jersey. That doesn’t matter now, though, because the 28-year-old was claimed on waivers Thursday by the team he’d spent his entire career with, the Minnesota Wild.
Prosser, who played in 126 games over five seasons for the Wild, signed with the Blues this summer as a depth guy on defense. He had an impressive training camp, but obviously the Blues decided that he wasn’t going to be in their immediate plans and yesterday decided to try to sneak him through waivers as a precursor to assigning him to AHL Chicago.
With Prosser out of the mix, it’s even more possible that 21-year-old Petteri Lindbohm will have a chance at making the opening roster, especially if offseason acquisition Carl Gunnarsson is not healthy enough to go on opening night. As a domino effect to the loss of Prosser, the chances of Chris Butler seeing time with the NHL club go up, and young players like Jani Hakanpaa and Joel Edmundson should rise up the defenseman depth chart. It would also seem more likely that the Blues would try to get veteran Ryan Whitney, who is currently with the club on a professional training camp tryout, in the fold on a two-way contract.
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Unless the Blues have a catastrophic string of injuries on the blue line this year, they should be well off depth-wise at the position. Butler played 82 games for the Calgary Flames last year and finished second in the league in blocked shots. Whitney’s a veteran of 481 NHL games and saw brief action last year for the Florida Panthers. And guys like Lindbohm, Hakanpaa, and Edmundson are seen as prospects with high upside who should be able to at least act as emergency injury replacements at the NHL level.