St. Louis Blues: Return Of Injured Players Present Exciting Opportunity

The St. Louis Blues were riddled with injuries before the all-star break, but with some of those players returning, there are a lot of reasons for optimism.

The St. Louis Blues have a potentially dangerous offense that has yet to show signs of consistency, however, with underperforming returners coupled with constant injury concerns, there are some reasons why the second half can be different than the first.

Injuries cannot be avoided and going into the season the Blues improved the depth of their team dramatically in order to help keep the team afloat during critical points of the season.

Players like Jordan Nolan, Jordan Kyrou, and Zach Sanford have all contributed to some of the success the team has had when top players were out with injuries.

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David Perron, Tyler Bozak, Jaden Schwartz, and Robert Thomas have all missed significant time in the first half of the season.

Thankfully, the Blues are very close to getting back to full strength. We saw Bozak return to action just before the break and immediately contribute with a goal against the Anaheim Ducks.

Bozak has only missed nine games this season but has been known to be a very durable player over his career. During the past two seasons, Bozak has missed a combined four games and has played 80 or more games in three of his nine career NHL seasons.

Schwartz has had yet another injury-plagued season and has missed 13 games this season already. Unlike Bozak, Schwartz has been known to be injury prone. After playing in 78 games in 2016-17, Schwartz has played in 62 games last season and only has 36 games under his belt this year.

Thomas was just starting to come into his own as an NHL player before sustaining an upper-body injury on January 10. The 19-year-old was gaining more responsibility on the ice, playing in almost every offensive and defensive situation for St. Louis.

Perron’s absence is the most concerning as he was becoming one of the Blues most prolific goal scorers prior to his injury. Perron managed to catch Ryan O’Reilly as the team’s leader in goals thanks to a 13 game point streak.

I would expect that both Perron and Thomas will be back very soon after the bye week, if not immediately after. The return of these players will restore the lineup to what it was designed to be in the summer.

It will give the Blues three, possibly four scoring lines and the return of Thomas specifically will give the team some much-needed speed on offense. The player that could benefit the most from the return of these players could be Oskar Sundqvist.

Sundqvist is by no means setting the NHL on fire but is having the best season of his career and it is not even close. He is one of four players to have scored at least ten goals this season, beating players like Brayden Schenn and Jaden Schwartz.

Give credit to general manager Doug Armstrong for assembling a team that can sustain multiple injuries at a time and still compete in the Western Conference.

Despite the injuries, the Blues are only three points out of a wild-card spot and with the inevitable return of Thomas and Perron, the second half has a great deal of potential for the Blues chances of sneaking into the playoffs.