The St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild enter this season still searching for the right combinations in their supporting cast.
That process will continue Thursday when the Blues host the Wild in the season opener for both teams.
Blues fourth-line center Oskar Sundqvist suffered a lower-body injury in practice Sunday.
“I feel bad for him because he continually puts the work in and one day, his luck is going to turn the other way,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said.
This injury will knock Sundqvist out of at least the first three games, so coach Jim Montgomery will likely move third-line winger Nick Bjugstad into that center slot between wingers Nathan Walker and Alexey Toropchenko.
That will create an opportunity for Mathieu Joseph or Alexandre Texier to open on the third line with Brayden Schenn and Jake Neighbours. Veteran winger Milan Lucic is still recovering from a lower-body injury that undermined his bid to make the team on a professional tryout offer.
“I talked to him about taking a deep breath, understanding that there’s light at the end of the tunnel with another in-season PTO that we can talk about, but get yourself healthy first,” Armstrong said. “He has to knock out somebody that is healthy on our roster, and we’re not there yet.”
The Blues will open the season with Robert Thomas, who led the team last season in assists (61) and points (81), at center between Pavel Buchnevich and rookie Jimmy Snuggerud on the top forward line.
St. Louis made the playoffs last year for the first time since 2021-22, losing to Winnipeg in the first round. The Blues have advanced out of the first round just once since winning the Stanley Cup in 2019.
The Wild, on the other hand, have made the playoffs 11 of the last 13 years, but haven’t advanced out of the first round since 2014-15.
Minnesota hoped to plug one of its top forward prospects onto its No. 2 line with Joel Eriksson Ek and Vladimir Tarasenko while playmaking winger Mats Zuccarello is recovering from his lower-body injury.
But neither Danila Yurov nor Liam Ohgren seized that opportunity during preseason play. As a result, coach John Hynes will look at veteran checker Marcus Foligno, who has 207 points in 528 games with Minnesota, into that role while Yurov or Ohgren slot onto the fourth line.
“We feel like (Yurov and Ohgren) have done a pretty good job there, but not a lot of, I just think, push from that group to be able to do it,” Hynes said. “So we knew coming into the year that that was going to be a little bit of an audition spot and we feel like we did give guys good opportunities and long looks there and different looks.
“And I think that taking a look at Foligno there now, he adds a different element than those other guys do, but it still looks like a line that could be very difficult to play against.”
Defenseman Jonas Brodin is working his way back from an upper-body injury. The team initially believed he could miss several games, but his recovery has moved ahead of schedule.
“I don’t know if he’s going to be available the first game or the first couple of games, but he is tracking ahead of schedule versus thinking he’d be back by the end of October.” Hynes said.
As of Wednesday, Brodin still had not been ruled out for the series opener, per a Minnesota Star Tribune report.
