The St. Louis Blues made a considerable addition to their defense corps by bringing in Nick Leddy at the trade deadline, and it was pretty good timing. Today, the team has announced that Torey Krug will be out on a week-to-week basis after leaving Tuesday’s game against the Washington Capitals.
Krug, 30, ended up playing just 11 minutes in that game, easily his low mark of the season. In his second year in St. Louis, Krug is averaging close to 21 minutes a night and leads all Blues defensemen with 35 points. Taking that out of the lineup is no small thing, and opens up a huge opportunity for the newcomer. With Krug out, Leddy ended up seeing more than three minutes of powerplay time and finished with over 20 overall. That’s despite the team dressing seven defensemen, showing how much the team is going to rely on the former Detroit Red Wing over the last few weeks of the season.
The Blues ended up winning that game, but are still just 3-4-3 in their last ten and find themselves only barely ahead of the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators in the Central Division. Even the Dallas Stars are only six points behind them, meaning St. Louis needs to start chugging in the right direction soon. Krug’s absence certainly won’t help that, even if they did add Leddy to the mix.
Of course, Scott Perunovich would have been useful in this case, but he too underwent surgery earlier this month and is still weeks away from a return.