1:05 p.m.: Vrana is not on today’s waiver list, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. Instead, Friedman relays the Blues have made the depth winger available for trade and that a transaction may be imminent, given he’s not on the wire as expected.
12:14 p.m.: The St. Louis Blues have placed forward Jakub Vrana on waivers, per Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic. This is the second time that the 27-year-old winger has found himself on waivers, with the Detroit Red Wings waiving him in January of last season. He was traded to the Blues ahead of the trade deadline, with St. Louis sending depth forward Dylan McLaughlin and a seventh-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft to Detroit.
Vrana has appeared in 19 games with St. Louis this season, netting two goals and six points. It’s a step down from the performance he managed with the club last season, as he scored 10 goals and 14 points in 20 games following his trade to Missouri. Vrana was originally drafted 13th overall in the 2014 NHL Draft by the Washington Capitals, being selected just two picks before Dylan Larkin and 12 picks before David Pastrnak. He played in one season in the SHL after his draft year before joining the AHL’s Hershey Bears at the end of the 2014-15 season. He stayed with the minor league club until the 2016-17 campaign when Washington recalled him for his NHL debut.
Vrana officially played his rookie season in 2017-18, scoring 13 goals and 27 points. But it was his sophomore and junior-year seasons that saw the winger start to break out – with Vrana managing 24 goals and 47 points in 2018-19 and 25 goals and 52 points in 2019-20. The Capitals dealt Vrana to Detroit in the following 2020-21 season, packaging him with Richard Pánik, a 2021 first-round pick, and a 2022 second-round pick for Anthony Mantha. Vrana saw his games played and scoring decline while in Detroit, both things he wasn’t able to build back up while in St. Louis. The Red Wings assigned Vrana to the minor leagues for 17 games last season – his first appearance in the AHL since 2016-17. If he clears waivers, he is expected to join the Blues’ AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds.