Zach Dean, Dillon Dube To Make St. Louis Blues Opening Night Roster

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- With a drumroll ... it looks like Zach Dean and Dillon Dube have won out the battle for the two extra forward slots for the St. Louis Blues to begin the 2026-27 season.

The Blues cut four players early Friday morning, including forwards Otto Stenberg, Dylan Peterson and Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, along with defenseman Adam Jiricek, leaving five spots needing to be cut in total to get down to Monday's 23-man opening night roster.

The Blues will be putting goalie Georgii Romanov on waivers for the purpose of getting him to Springfield of the American Hockey League, and that left Oskar Sundqvist, Nathan Walker and Jack Finley, who were put on waivers on Friday, on the outside looking in. If any of the veterans are able to clear, they will join Steve Ott and the Thunderbirds in the AHL to begin the season.

"I wouldn't say certainly (that's the 23-man team that was on the ice Friday), but it's certainly been a good camp," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said prior to Friday afternoon's transactions. "We wanted it to be competitive, it's been competitive. There's a lot of young guys, the veterans have shown really well. We're excited about where our group's at."

Dean, who will play in all four games this preseason when the Blues end their exhibition schedule Saturday against the Chicago Blackhawks, and Dube, signed to a one-year, one-way, $850,000 contract this summer, in the end won out the jobs as the 13th and 14th forwards when the Blues submit their 23-man roster by Monday's 4 p.m. (CT) deadline.

What stood out for those two?

"I think their speed, their energy, their tenacity on pucks, coming up with pucks," Montgomery said. "That's been primarily (it). Those things, those attributes.

"They both are fast, they both are tenacious. I would say that Dean probably has more game-breaking speed and I would say that Dube has a little more savvy. He's really savvy out there. He always comes up with pucks, he's going to the right places."

Dean skated on the Blues' top line Thursday between Pavel Buchnevich and Connor McMichael in a 1-0 win over the Blackhawks on home ice and had a couple really high-end scoring chances and played another solid game.

"He played really well," Montgomery said. "He supported those guys really well. I thought that line was effective. Yeah, played well."

With Jiricek going to Springfield to likely play top-heavy minutes, that left Calle Rosen as the seventh defenseman, with the veteran winning out that battle in the end.

Tyler Tucker, who tweaked his right knee in practice this past Sunday and hasn't skated since, is all but likely to begin the season on injured-reserve but for how long, nobody knows.

"I don't want to talk too much because I would say that I think so, but there's a chance not," Montgomery said. "I'd just rather not say because I don't definitively know."

The 32-year-old Rosen, who scored the lone goal Thursday, provides the experience and insurance needed in an extra defenseman that Jiricek would not benefit from being here and not playing.

"He's a really good hockey player," Montgomery said of Rosen. "Smart, veteran, great feet. What a shot last night. Supports people really well."

For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.