About two-thirds of the way through writing my piece yesterday on why the Blues are having (as predicted) problems with the Arizona Coyotes, the Blues announced very unwelcome news: Robert Thomas will be out for at least four weeks with a broken thumb. This means that the Blues will be short both Thomas and Tyler Bozak for the foreseeable future. Jacob de la Rose has been recalled from the taxi squad to play the part of fourth-line center, so Ivan Barbashev may be getting the bump up to the fourth line.
Robert Bortuzzo is available for tonight’s game, coming off of a ten game stay on the IR.