Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Doug Armstrong On Injuries And The Trade Deadline

03/02/2021 at 4:30am EST

from Lou Korac of In The Slot,

"I've been around the game for a while, this is the largest number of injuries we've had for the extent of time that they're going to be out," Armstrong said Monday before the Blues played the second of a six-game road trip against the Anaheim Ducks.

Eight of them -- yes, eight! -- are currently shelved with some form of ailment, including defenseman Colton Parayko and forwards Jaden Schwartz and Tyler Bozak, who Armstrong described as out indefinitely, meaning they could return soon, or not for a while.

They join Robert Thomas, who broke his left thumb Feb. 6 against Arizona and will be reevaluated in four weeks, which is roughly two more than originally thought; Ivan Barbashev, who sustained a hairline fracture in his left ankle Feb. 18, will be re-evauated in six weeks, and Jacob de la Rose, who left Saturday's 7-6 marathon win over San Jose with a lower-body injury, will go on injured reserve and be reevaluated in three weeks....

The Blues are going to have players out for the longer term, and with the trade deadline roughly five weeks away, do they look to the outside, or could they even try?

"Well, no, the cap is not really that big an ... it's an issue obviously," Armstrong said. "I obviously don't want to minimize it, but we certainly have enough space now with the guys that we have on LTI, even when Vladi comes back. When Bozie comes back, we'll have enough space. Gunny's going to be on there the rest of the year. With Gunny being on the rest of the year (and) on our opening day roster, we'd be at 23 players anyways. Obviously 4-6 weeks for Barbashev and Thomas, you never know, there might be somebody ... hopefully there's nobody else on that list at that time, so the cap is a work in progress, but it's something that we just have to work around, maintain and let me put it this way, I hope we have cap issues."

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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