St. Louis Blues Oskar Sundqvist Injury Sums Up 2023-24 Season

The St. Louis Blues have lost Oskar Sundqvist for the remainder of the 2023-24 season. While that is likely only going to be 10 games, it is still a blow to the team.

Sundqvist is one of those glue guys that fits multiple roles. He is best suited on the fourth line, where he played most of this season, but has the talent to play further up the roster in a pinch.

Sunny does the dirty things, in terms of playing in places where other guys don't want to. That is exemplified by his inclusion on the team's second power play unit because he was one of the few willing to park himself in front of the netl

Losing any man to injury is a blow to a team, even if they have the deepest roster in the league. The Blues do not have that kind of depth, which compounds things.

However, it's the way he went out. Just like the Blues, it didn't seem that bad until it was.

For those that watched it live, or even on replay, it didn't initially seem like it would be an injury that would even keep him out for the game. It is true he wasn't able to put much weight on the leg, but it just seemed like a slightly awkward fall into the boards.

On the broadcast, even Jamie Rivers seemed a bit perplexed as to what might have gone wrong. He guessed it might have been an ankle problem given the slight buckle to the leg.

On March 27, we found out it was a knee injury. Not only was it an injury, but Sundqvist tore his ACL, which will require surgery. He will be reevaluated in six months.

That all but takes him out of the equation for the start of the season. Every person has their own timetable for each individual injury, but often times the reevaluation timeline is just to see if they're ready to start skating or, best case, ready to start contact practices. Unless there's a big change, he's not going to be ready for 2024-25 when the first puck drops.

There's nothing funny about an injury, but the amusing thing is this pretty much sums up the entire Blues season. It seemed like just a bump in the road until it all came crashing down by the end.

I highly doubt any person watching that game against Vegas thought that's a season ending injury right there. Similarly, even the biggest doubter of this team probably thought things would go a little better than they have for the team.

Even if you actually projected the Blues to miss the playoffs when 2023-24 began, I doubt you had them firing Craig Berube after 28 games. It just didn't seem like it was going to be that bad.

Even if the Blues missed the playoffs, you just felt it would be a win here, a couple losses there. Three wins here and then maybe two or three losses there and it would just accumulate over the course of the year.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way. St. Louis would get a handful of winning streaks, but there were just too many losses in between to really mount a charge at the playoffs. Losing to bottom dwellers and stars not showing up in key games played a big factor too.

Ultimately, losing a fourth line player shouldn't impact the Blues a ton in their last 10 games. Sundqvist played with energy, heart and grit, but he's only averaged just over 13 minutes per game, which is the second lowest he's had in a Blues uniform.

It's just another random blow to a team that we all knew wasn't going to contend, but still had higher hopes for. Hopefully Sunny has a quick recovery and this team can get enough new blood to rebound next season.