St. Louis Blues: Robert Bortuzzo Just Can’t Catch A Break

The St. Louis Blues may not be as deep as they were last season, but they’re thanking their lucky stars they still have reliable defenders. Good thing too. Just when one gains a foothold, it seems like something goes wrong.

The St. Louis Blues were one of the deepest teams in the entire league in 2015-16. It was a main reason they went as far as they did in the playoffs.

This year, the Blues don’t have quite as deep a lineup overall. Even so, they still have plenty of quality defenders.

That’s definitely a plus since there has been a bit of a revolving door along the blue line. Of course, you have your stalwarts such as Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester, who seem to never miss a beat.

You also have guys who have patiently waited their turn while others were in the lineup ahead of them. Robert Bortuzzo is one of those such players.

Bortuzzo has been waiting his turn since arriving in St. Louis in 2014-15. He’s gotten his chances here or there, but has not found a way to stick.

Such was the case this year. Things were stacked against Bortuzzo from the start, but he’s plugged right along.

The main thing he has had going against him from the start is being a right handed defender. We all had him penciled in prior to the 2015-16 season, but the emergence of Colton Parayko erased all that.

Bortuzzo was unable to get as many games due to Parayko taking his spot and then Joel Edmundson eating up the final spot. Bortz couldn’t take that spot away because the Blues wanted to have three pairings with a left hander and right hander paired together.

Because of that last fact, even when guys like Carl Gunnarsson went out with injury, Bortuzzo could not crack the lineup since he was the wrong handedness. Not anything wrong with that decision, but it clearly did not do Bortuzzo any favors. His own injury problems have held him back at times as well.

Finally, after continually working hard in practice, paying his dues and being healthy, Bortuzzo found a way into the Blues lineup when Edmundson got hurt. The way he was playing, he seemed to have no intention of giving that spot back.

Bortuzzo was doing a little bit of everything. He’s only played 11 games in 2016-17 and is already one point away from his career high with St. Louis.

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Also, he has been one of the team’s most consistent defenders. Not known as an offensive defensemen, he jumps into the rush while not shirking his responsibilities, was seeing the ice very well and just playing a very solid overall game.

Even his teammates have noticed the way he stepped up. “He was playing unreal,” said Parayko. “He was one of our top D, I think.”

Alas, he just cannot catch a break. Bortuzzo picked up a lower body injury against the Winnipeg Jets and will now miss a decent amount of time.

Ken Hitchcock said it was not the same lower body injury getting reaggravated. He said it is the other side of the lower body, so we can only assume it must be a leg injury.

The Blues also list him as week to week. Usually they say day to day and we will see from there. To go immediately to week to week means it could be a lengthy stay on the injured list.

Fortunately for the Blues, Edmundson is ready to return. He will almost surely be in the lineup when the team faces Montreal.

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Nobody has anything against Edmundson. He’s a great, young player with plenty of upside and just had a little bit of a slump compared to his fine rookie campaign.

It’s just a pity that Bortuzzo won’t have the opportunity to defend the spot he had earned. In the end, perhaps it is just bad luck.