Logan Mailloux had surgery on his right hand and will be re-evaluated in eight weeks, leaving the Blues without a key defenseman to open the season.
Tyler Tucker is also week-to-week with a lower-body injury, the team announced.
Mailloux left Saturday's 3-2 loss in Chicago early, logging just 5:54 before exiting.
He was also charged with 17 penalty minutes in that short stretch and managed one shot on goal.
Eight weeks from now points to late November.
Gino Hard called him one of the Blues' top offensive defensemen, which makes the timing even worse.
So who steps into those minutes?
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Blues receive terrible news on Logan Mailloux and Tyler Tucker
Tucker isn't a minor loss either. He played 69 games last season and put up 17 points.
He also piled up 81 penalty minutes, which tells you exactly what kind of game he brings.
The Thunder Bay, Ontario, native carries a $925,000 cap hit and becomes an unrestricted free agent after this season.
The Blues took him 200th overall in 2018, and he has 159 NHL games on his resume.
He scored in his only NHL playoff action, a three-game stint in 2024-25.
Before turning pro, he put up 59 points for the Barrie Colts in 2018-19.
Here's where it gets interesting. Elliotte Friedman said the Blues were "legitimately interested" in Alexander Nikishin for a while.
Friedman also says the Hurricanes want something akin to two first-rounders for the defenseman.
Doug Armstrong should make that call again. Losing two defensemen before opening night is exactly when a team stops browsing and starts buying.
It's like losing two tires on the way to the airport. You can limp in on the spare, but you're not making your flight on time.
The Blues finished the preseason 1-3-0 and open October 2 in Dallas.
That's a rough first test without two regulars on the back end, against a Stars team that went 4-0-0 this preseason.
Mailloux's next checkpoint is two months away. Whether Armstrong waits that long to fix the blue line is the real question.
Should the Blues trade for Alexander Nikishin after losing Logan Mailloux?
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