Blues Go Down to 30 Players

The St. Louis Blues have now cut down their roster to 30 players with a few cuts to come shortly after or possibly during the week, with only three preseason games left to play.

The current roster is made up of 17 forwards, 10 defense and three goalies, so there should still be four forwards, three defense and a goalie to be cut before the season opener, but with three games left to go, it's very likely that the bubble players will now get at least one more time to shine and earn a job.

I would think when it is all said and done, the easiest contracts will likely be the ones that are sent down, unless there is a player that really goes above and beyond to earn that job.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Andy McDonald	Erik Johnson	Jaroslav Halak
T.J. Oshie	Carlo Colaiacovo	Ty Conklin
David Perron	Roman Polak	Ben Bishop
David Backes	Barret Jackman
Alex Steen	Eric Brewer
Brad Boyes	Ian Cole
Jay McClement	Nikita Nikitin
Patrik Berglund	Nathan Oystrick
B.J. Crombeen	Alex Pietrangelo
Vladimir Sobotka	Tyson Strachan
Brad Winchester
Matt D'Agostini
Cam Janssen
Nick Drazenovic
T.J. Hensick
Chris Porter
Dave Scatchard

With 30 players on their current roster and one buyout on the books, the Blues come in at an annual salary cap projection of $52.9 million, well under the salary cap ceiling and with more space to open up with the cuts upcoming.  The Blues are believed to be on a ownership-enforced budget, so there shouldn't be any real thought of going out and adding more expensive talent, unless there is some extra space at the deadline and a rental player is needed for a run.