St. Louis Blues Recall Defenseman Andre Benoit from AHL Chicago Wolves
In an apparent attempt to inject more offense into their defensive corps, the St. Louis Blues recalled Andre Benoit from the minors.
The St. Louis Blues made yet another addition to their NHL roster on Sunday, recalling 32-year-old defenseman Andre Benoit from their AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. Benoit joins a Blues team that has been torn up by injuries lately, and he could be the 10th different defenseman to suit up for the Blues this season if he plays in a game.
Benoit, who dressed in all of the Wolves’ first 37 games, has led the team in points for much of the season. He’s fallen behind center Pat Cannone recently, but he still ranks second on the team with 25 points (four goals and 21 assists). Benoit has a plus-10 rating and six penalty minutes for the Wolves this season. He scored a goal for Chicago in Friday night in their win over the Iowa Wild.
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Benoit previously spent four seasons in the NHL, starting in 2010-11. He’s played 179 games, scoring 11 goals and adding 37 assists, though he has a concerning career plus-minus rating of minus-21. Benoit had a career year in 2013-14 for the Colorado Avalanche, scoring seven goals and contributing 21 assists over 79 games with a plus-2 rating. He’s also played 12 playoff games between the Senators and Avalanche, during which he’s collected four assists.
The timing of Benoit’s recall is quite strange, and we’ll have to see what the reasoning is behind it. It could simply be because the Blues feel like defensemen Carl Gunnarsson and Jay Bouwmeester aren’t progressing quickly enough from injuries–even though they skated on Sunday–and they want to have an extra defenseman on hand. There’s also a chance that they want to preserve Chris Butler‘s exemption from waivers, as he’s spent 29 days in the NHL this season and would need to go through waivers again if he’s around for more than 30. If Gunnarsson and Bouwmeester are due to return soon, the team could sacrifice a game with Butler in the lineup (or the press box) in order to help ensure that he stays under their control for the rest of this season.
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Finally, it’s possible that Benoit could be arriving as the Blues get prepared to make a trade. That’s a possibility that’s been much-discussed recently, as defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk has been rumored to be on the trading block, and the Blues have been rumored to have interest in highly-coveted Tampa Bay Lightning minor-leaguer Jonathan Drouin.