Blues defenseman Torey Krug will endure surgical procedure to deal with pre-arthritic adjustments in his left ankle and can miss all the 2024-25 season, basic supervisor Doug Armstrong introduced Tuesday. The staff’s press launch didn’t say when Krug can have the surgical procedure carried out.
It’s not an sudden growth. The staff stated season-ending surgical procedure was a risk in July once they introduced that staff medical doctors had detected pre-arthritic circumstances in his ankle.
On the time, the staff stated Krug would “work to rehabilitate the damage by means of non-surgical interventions over the course of the following six to eight weeks” earlier than figuring out whether or not surgical procedure can be mandatory. With these interventions failing, the 33-year-old will sit out the marketing campaign.
Krug’s left ankle damage is a “cumulative results of a bone fracture suffered earlier in his taking part in profession,” the Blues stated earlier this summer season. They didn’t state specifics, nevertheless it’s most definitely the left ankle fracture he sustained within the second spherical of the 2018 playoffs whereas with the Bruins. It value him the ultimate recreation of their sequence loss in opposition to the Lightning, and he additionally missed the primary 11 video games of the 2018-19 season whereas recovering from the fracture.
The defender is now over midway by means of the seven-year, $45.5M contract he signed in St. Louis as an unrestricted free agent in 2020. He has three seasons remaining on the deal, which carries a $6.5M cap hit.
Whereas not a stark overpayment, particularly because the wage cap begins to rise, Krug hasn’t met expectations with the Blues. Accidents are nothing new for the defender, who’s by no means performed a full 82 video games in a season, and he’s missed at the least 5 video games in all of his 4 seasons in St. Louis up to now. Final yr’s 77 appearances had been his most in seven years.
Krug was signed primarily to fill the void left on the St. Louis blue line by former captain Alex Pietrangelo, who left for the Golden Knights in free company in 2020 only one yr after main the Blues to their first Stanley Cup in franchise historical past. At no level in his profession has Krug been the all-around defender that Pietrangelo was, although, and that’s been mirrored in his subpar possession numbers since heading west to Missouri.
In 255 video games as a Blue, Krug has 22 objectives, 124 assists and 146 factors with a -23 score whereas averaging 20:54 per recreation, barely extra utilization than he noticed throughout his 9 years in Boston. With him on the ice at even energy, the Blues have managed 49.0% of shot makes an attempt and 47.7% of anticipated objectives, per Hockey Reference.
Krug was solely the Blues’ third most-used defenseman final season. His 21:58 common time on ice checked in behind Colton Parayko (23:52) and Nick Leddy (22:22).
Recent offer-sheet acquisition Philip Broberg will probably get the primary likelihood to interchange nearly all of Krug’s minutes. The 2019 eighth-overall choose by the Oilers, who the Blues signed to a two-year, $9.16M contract final month that Edmonton declined to match, had 38 factors in 49 video games with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors final season.
The expert puck-mover has solely seen restricted NHL minutes in Edmonton, and thrusting him into top-four minutes out of the gate is a big gamble for a Blues staff with playoff aspirations. However doing so would make his dear $4.58M cap hit far more palatable.
Additionally they have a stable backup choice for Broberg in 26-year-old Scott Perunovich, whose growth has been delayed by a sequence of serious accidents. Nonetheless, he’s nonetheless bought a good bit of offensive upside and had 17 assists in 54 contests for the Blues final yr whereas averaging simply 15:16 per recreation.
Cap-wise, the Blues can have ample flexibility this season with the choice to position Krug on long-term injured reserve at any time. They’ve over $2M in projected cap house with an open roster spot although, per PuckPedia, in order that gained’t be mandatory to start the season. They’ll hold him on normal injured reserve for so long as doable to build up cap house all through the season.
Cap-wise, the Blues can have ample flexibility this season with the choice to position Krug on long-term injured reserve at any time. They’ve over $2M in projected cap house with an open roster spot although, per PuckPedia, in order that gained’t be mandatory to start the season. They’ll hold him on normal injured reserve for so long as doable to build up cap house all through the season.
