St. Louis Blues winger once more dealing with lower-body injury

Dealing with lower-body issues during the preseason for the St.Louis Blues, Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic is reporting that Alexey Toropchenko will once again miss some time with a lower-body injury. Specifically, Rutherford notes that it is considered day-to-day, which should give him solid time to recover given that the team doesn’t play again until this upcoming Wednesday.

Operating as a bottom-six forward for much of the season last year, Toropchenko became a decent depth scoring option for a middle-of-the-pack Blues offense. In 69 games played, Toropchenko scored 10 goals and nine assists, his best offensive production in a single year over the course of his short career.

In each passing game, Toropchenko appears more and more likely to become a relatively niche part of St.Louis’ offensive scheme. He does play extremely physically, which is a benefit for most teams, but with an unimpressive rating throughout his career, mixed with well below-average possession numbers, Toropchenko does not strike as a player headed for a huge breakout, although it could happen.

Like much of the Blues offense to start this season, Toropchenko has yet to score a goal in the team’s first seven games, averaging about a minute more ice time than he did last year. Being only one of two teams to not average two or more goals a game in the first two weeks of the season, St.Louis will need to make some sort of change to reinvigorate it’s offense before things deteriorate too quickly.