St. Louis Blues Send Petteri Lindbohm Back to AHL Chicago

The St. Louis Blues announced on Wednesday afternoon that they have reassigned rookie defenseman Petteri Lindbohm to the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League. Lindbohm, who is playing his first season in America after coming over from Finland at the start of the year, had been a regular in the lineup over the past month, playing in 14 of the team’s last 17 games. The move to jettison Lindbohm presumably signals the imminent return of Kevin Shattenkirk, who has been out since February 1 after having surgery to repair an abdominal injury.
The move to send Lindbohm back to Chicago could have potentially adverse effects on the Blues’ play. Lindbohm has been a key part of what they’ve done since mid-February, as the team went 9-3-2 with him in the lineup after his first game back on February 20. In contrast, they are 0-2-1 without him in the lineup during that period.

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During Lindbohm’s most recent stint with the NHL club, he’s been one of the team’s most consistent players in the defensive end while also adding two goals and registering a rating of plus-1. He’s rather noticeably outperformed more high-profile players such as

and

, though Bouwmeester has stepped it up a bit as of late, while Michalek had his best game yet as a Blue on Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

Along with the anticipated return of Gunnarsson, the imminent return of Shattenkirk will be important to the filling of the void left by Lindbohm’s departure. There’s going to be high expectations for Shattenkirk upon his return, as he was an All-Star and one of the best defenseman in the NHL prior to his injury. However, athletes across all sports have typically struggled to achieve a high level of success after returning in the same season that they suffered a serious abdominal injury, so perhaps the expectations for Shattenkirk need to be tempered.

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In addition, it’s not as if Lindbohm has a great chance of contributing to a playoff run in Chicago. While the Wolves are only a point out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the AHL’s Western Conference, they’ve remained on the outside of the playoff picture for a large chunk of the season and don’t seem to have a great chance of gaining much ground as the season winds down. Instead, Lindbohm will further crowd a Wolves defenseman group that includes Chicago’s own independent players, Mathieu Brodeur and

, who play on a nightly basis, as well as Blues prospects Jani Hakanpaa, Joel Edmundson, Brent Regner, Colton Parayko, and David Shields. Basically, the Blues end up giving up some quality NHL depth in exchange for some extra salary cap space that will be created by Lindbohm going back to Chicago.

NHL teams are allowed to make four non-emergency call-ups after the trade deadline. The Blues previously had made a procedural move at the deadline to demote and recall Lindbohm so that he would be eligible for the AHL playoffs. Now that he has been sent down again, they are allowed to make only two more call-ups from the Wolves until Chicago’s season ends.

Next: Blues Should Stick with Petteri Lindbohm Going Forward