What’re they waiting for – an invitation?

Darryl Sydor/Photo by Dan4th - Flickr

Defenseman Darryl Sydor has been offered a try-out at the St. Louis Blues’ training camp. Sydor, late of the Dallas Stars, had 2 goals and 11 assists in 65 GP last season. Sydor wasn’t physical enough for Dallas’ new direction this year, so they opted not to re-sign him. This means that there will be added competition to fill that vacant 7th position (or bump someone down into it) as well as to temporarily fill Eric Brewer’s slot. He’s a two-time Cup champion (1999 and 2004) who is viewed by some to be a veteran presence to steer the younger players to playoff success – our forwards have strong vet leadership, but the defense’s veteran presence consists of Barrett Jackman, and he can’t do it all alone.

This invitation to camp on a try-out basis isn’t technically a Blues player anymore, but is still probably of interest to Blues fans: Manny Legace has been invited to try out with the Atlanta Thrashers at their camp, which starts September 12th. I might wander over there a day to see how he’s doing. I confirmed with Ben Wright of The Blueland Blog that players who are there as a camp invite can in fact participate in pre-season games, so Legace might suit up against Tampa Bay, Nashville, or Carolina in one of the six pre-season games. Hopefully with a more clearly defined goaltending role on a team he can rebound back to stats closer to his All-Star season than last season, which ended ingloriously in Peoria.