St. Louis Blues: Injuries Piling Up As Even Months Prove Unkind

The St. Louis Blues overcame the injuries they were dealt with at the beginning of the 2017-18 season. Now, they will be put to the test again with more key players on the shelf.

The St. Louis Blues had their backs to the wall to begin the season when it came to the injuries. To start the 2017-18 season, the Blues were without almost a quarter of their planned opening day roster.

Suddenly, after only one game against the Detroit Red Wings, the Blues are back in a corner again. They will now be without two of their best for at least a game in one instance and much longer in another.

The injury everyone knew about was to Jaden Schwartz. He blocked a wrist shot in the first period, not long after scoring the initial goal of the contest.

The shot did not look overly powerful. So, the guesses here are he either took the shot in the perfect spot or his foot was at an odd angle when the shot hit him.

Regardless, most fans were relieved to hear that the x-rays were negative. They were not so relieved with the news the day after.

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The Blues have placed Schwartz on the injured reserve list. He will be re-evaluated in six weeks. So, he likely will not return until late January or February.

That’s a big blow. Schwartz was having a career season and leading the Blues in points most of the season. Just as important, it breaks up the chemistry between he and Brayden Schenn.

The Blues have also lost Alex Pietrangelo. According to multiple Twitter reports, Mike Yeo is listing the captain as day-to-day, but we’ve seen that go south in the past as well.

Apparently the injury happened in the same fashion. A blocked shot was to blame. We can only hope that the Blues are not without both these guys for an extended period.

So far in 2017, heading into 2018, the even numbered months have not been kind on the injury front. We found out about Patrik Berglund‘s surgery in June and then many of the injuries right before the season came at the beginning of October. Robby Fabbri‘s injury early in preseason was the main exception. All of that includes Carter Hutton‘s injury.

Still, you hope this will not be an escalating thing. The Blues have already lost pretty much the entire top half of the roster at some point. They don’t need any more important guys going out.

Looking forward, it will be interesting to see what Yeo does. Do you simply plug Ivan Barbashev in the top line and see how it goes or do you shuffle the entire lineup?

The same goes for the defenders. I find it hard to imagine putting Robert Bortuzzo in the top defender slot. Who ends up with Jay Bouwmeester then? Most likely it will be Colton Parayko, but stranger things have happened.

The frustrating part of all this is the impact on the team. There are times when it’s ok to shake things up and try things out. You don’t want to be forced to do it though. It should come as a result of practice results, not necessity.

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I do not see the sky falling. It is hard to see the team not being impacted in some fashion though.

It is the Blues’ reality for now though. They have already shown they can persevere, as they got off to the best start in team history in that first month of play, dealing with those injuries.

This is supposed to be a joyous season. Instead, we are focusing on negativity.

Perhaps they will show us all again why they should be considered contenders. If they can keep the train on the tracks with injuries of this caliber (no offense to the guys who were out earlier), then they’ll have really sent a message to the league.

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