While the St. Louis Blues have been hot on the ice winning six games in a row, their injury problems have gone from bad to worse. Forward Alexander Steen sustained a lower body injury that was later ruled a high ankle sprain in the Blues 5-2 win in Edmonton on Wednesday. With the Blues already missing Vladimir Tarasenko for five months with a surgically repaired dislocated shoulder and Steen set to be reevaluated in four weeks leaves two big gaps up front for the boys in blue. Although the Blues will certainly miss both Tarasenko and Steen this creates a great opportunity for the Blues growing younger core that has just had a new addition. Within ten minutes of the Blues win over the Oilers the Blues announced they had traded Robby Fabbri to the Detroit Red Wings for Jacob De La Rose. Da La Rose is a Swedish Center drafted 34th overall by the Montreal Canadians in the 2013 draft but was claimed off waivers by the Detroit Red Wings on October 17th 2018. In 119 NHL games De La Rose has posted eight goals and eleven assists including a goal and three assists in sixteen games this year. De La Rose will immediately be thrown into a battle for ice time with Blues youngsters Robert Thomas, Sammy Blais, Mackenzie MacEachern, and Zach Sanford on top of possibly Klim Kostin or Nathan Walker who have both had good seasons so far for the San Antonio Rampage. Robert Thomas and Sammy Blais seem to be the two that will benefit most from this extra ice time right away. Robert Thomas seems to have found a home on a line with Schwartz and Schenn who were paired together halfway through the game on Saturday in Minnesota. The man that Thomas switched with also appears to have found a pairing, Sammy Blais and Tyler Bozak have combined for three goals and two assists since being placed on the same line. With the Blues finding chemistry no matter what combination they put together up front and the back end continuing to be strong the Blues should be able to stay a dominate force in the central. The Blues look to make it seven in a row on Saturday in Calgary as they wrap up their tour of western Canada before returning home Tuesday to play the Coyotes.
