The St. Louis Blues are struggling to remain viable amid a bevy of early-season injuries ahead of their home clash with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.
St. Louis beat Toronto 4-2 on Sunday to snap a three-game skid, but Philip Broberg became the latest Blue to go down. The defenseman will miss four to six weeks due to a lower-body injury.
Broberg had two goals and seven assists in the first 12 games while playing on the second defensive pairing for St. Louis.
“He’s a huge part of our ‘D’ corps and our team,” Blues defenseman Colton Parayko said. “He plays a lot of minutes, he plays against a lot of top lines. Just great to have around the room, and a good person. Tough to see, wishing everything goes well with everything.”
Broberg joins No. 1 center Robert Thomas (broken ankle), top-pairing defenseman Nick Leddy (lower-body injury) and third-line winger Mathieu Joseph (lower-body injury) on the shelf.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries,” St. Louis coach Drew Bannister said. “It’s just part of the game. Every team goes through it. We seem to be going through a few that seem to be coming all at once right now. We’re being tested, and that’s fine. We have a resilient bunch in there.
“We’re going to find ways to push through it.”
Thomas isn’t expected back until December at the earliest. There is no timeline for the return of Leddy and Joseph, who are not currently skating.
Leddy’s injury prompted Bannister to move Ryan Suter up from the third pairing to the top defensive pairing with Parayko. With Broberg out, Pierre-Olivier Joseph will move next to Justin Faulk on the second pairing.
Scott Perunovich will get his chance to play regularly on the third pairing with Matthew Kessel. Perunovich has been a healthy scratch nine times this season.
The Lightning might also be short-handed on Tuesday as top center Brayden Point exited Sunday night’s 7-4 loss at Winnipeg after just six shifts with an undisclosed injury.
Point produced eight goals and five assists through 12 games while anchoring the top forward line and the top power-play unit with Nikita Kucherov and Jake Guentzel.
Tampa Bay did not practice Monday, so the team didn’t offer an update on Point or indicate how they might realign their forward lines against the Blues.
“I mean he’s just a high-elite player, so whenever you lose a player like that, the guys got to step up,” Guentzel said. “You know injuries are part of the game, so (we’ve) just got to move on, and next man up.”
With Point seeing limited action against the Jets before getting hurt, forwards Anthony Cirelli (21:55) and Nick Paul (20:57) posted season highs in playing time while assuming bigger roles.
The Lightning will aim to salvage a split of their four-game road trip, which began with a 5-2 win at Colorado. Tampa Bay has lost its last two games while being outscored 12-7.
“When you’re giving up the goals we’re giving up here on the road, it’s tough to win,” coach Jon Cooper said.
Defenseman Erik Cernak said the formula for improvement is simple.
“We just have to be better,” he said. “We have to look into it and get better in those small details.”
–Field Level Media
