James Neal placed on waivers on Sunday.

The St. Louis Blues appear to be willing to risk the possibility of losing their veteran preseason acquistion.

According to a report from National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman, veteran Blues forward James Neal has been placed on waivers on Sunday. This effectively leaves Neal open to being claimed by any team in the National Hockey League, and when you consider his wealth of experience and his relatively affordable contract I suspect there is a good chance we could see him on the move.

Neal was left without a contract this past offseason and in spite of the fact that he no doubt tried to secure a new deal he was initially unable to do so. This resulted in him agreeing to a professional tryout offer with the St. Louis Blues and it was one that paid off big time for the 34 year old native of Whitby, Ontario. Not only did Neal earn himself a contract with the Blues off the back of that tryout, but he picked up a hat trick in the preseason on his way to becoming the team's leading scorer in the preseason as well.

Since that time however Neal has been relatively limited in his play time with the Blues, appearing in only 17 games this season and recording a modest 2 goals and 2 assists for 4 points over that stretch of play. Neal has done a pretty good job of staying responsible however with no penalty minutes to his name this season a plus minus rating of -1 this far into the campaign.

As I have already mentioned though the biggest selling point for Neal at this stage of his career is his contract. At a cap hit of just $750,00 Neal is an asset that you can easily manage under the salary cap and with so many teams missing players due to injury or due to the Covid protocol list, it's hard for me to see a scenario in which no team takes a shot at picking him up.

Every team will have the chance to submit a claim for him and we will found out the result of that process by Monday at noon.