St. Louis Blues Activate Jaden Schwartz from IR, Send Down Colin Fraser
The St. Louis Blues will get a huge boost to their lineup on Saturday night, as they have activated forward Jaden Schwartz from injured reserve and sent forward Colin Fraser back to the Chicago Wolves of the AHL.
Life has been rough for the Blues as Schwartz has been absent with a broken foot. The Blues reached arguably their highest point of the season in Schwartz’s last game on December 16, when they defeated the Los Angeles Kings 5-2 at home to continue a five-game winning streak. Since then, however, things have gone downhill.
The Blues lost six of the seven games which Schwartz missed. While the team’s biggest issues have been in the defensive end, Schwartz’s absence seems to have slowed down the Blues’ primary source of offense; Vladimir Tarasenko, who had 20 goals in 31 games with Schwartz working as his linemate for a large chunk of the time, has scored just two goals with Schwartz out of the lineup.
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Schwartz will be back in the lineup tonight, and the Blues will have to hope that his presence can change things. Presumably, the “STL” line with Schwartz, Tarasenko, and Jori Lehtera will be reunited. That will allow Paul Stastny, who spent last game with Tarasenko and Lehtera, to resume creating offensive opportunities for Dmitrij Jaskin, and it will allow the Blues to move either Patrik Berglund or Ryan Reaves, neither of whom is an exceptional offensive threat, down to the fourth line.
Fraser goes back to the minors after seeing the briefest of NHL action, as he was on the ice for just 4:42 and was a minus-1 for Friday night’s loss to the Anaheim Ducks. It was 29-year-old’s NHL first game of the season after being recalled on Wednesday evening. Though Fraser was fortunate enough to see game action, he followed a similar path to fellow NHL vet John McCarthy, who was called up with Fraser in advance of Thursday’s practice but ended up being sent down on Friday morning when defenseman Carl Gunnarsson was activated from injured reserve.