St. Louis Blues’ Paul Stastny Ruled Out with Lower-Body Injury
By Sammy Stava
The St. Louis Blues announced earlier today that center Paul Stastny has returned to St. Louis after suffering a lower-body injury in Friday night’s win against the Vancouver Canucks. He will miss the rest of this road trip and his status will be updated after Tuesday night’s game at Montreal.
Paul Stastny sustained a lower-body injury last night in Vancouver and has returned to St. Louis. http://t.co/sEJcmWLBca
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) October 17, 2015
Stastny has totaled five points in the first five games this season (one goal, four assists). His injury occurred during the second period in last night’s 4-3 victory over Vancouver. The Blues are off to a 4-1-0 start (8 points) in their first five games this season, but have already lost some key players due to injuries, including Robby Fabbri and Kevin Shattenkirk.
For the moment, this will be a big challenge for the Blues to finish off this road trip after losing a key contributor in the productive top line of Alexander Steen, Paul Stastny, and Vladimir Tarasenko. Expect Scott Gomez to take Stastny’s spot in the lineup. Meanwhile, defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk will also miss the final two games of this road trip, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Jeremy Rutherford.
Hitch also said that Shattenkirk will not play in the final two games of the road trip. #stlblues
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) October 17, 2015
Just spoke with Hitch ... he says that Gomez will slide up the lineup to help compensate for Stastny's loss. #stlblues
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) October 17, 2015
The Blues will be back in action tomorrow afternoon against the Jets in Winnipeg in an early Central Division showdown. Both Winnipeg and St. Louis are off to 4-1-0 starts.