Blues Blank Stars 4-0, But Lose Toropchenko to Injury and Carlo to Ejection
Daily Faceoff reported the injury and ejection, noting the incident involved a knee on Roope Hintz.
The walked into on Friday night and handed the a 4-0 shutout, but the scoreboard is officially the least interesting part of the game. If you had multiple casualties and a major penalty ejection on your bingo card, congratulations on the payout.
According to Daily Faceoff, Blues forward was forced to leave the game with an injury, while defenseman was given an early shower after being ejected. The report points directly to a kneeing incident involving Stars center , is exactly the kind of play that gets the NHL Department of Player Safety firing up their laptops.
Winning a road game by four goals is a great night for the standings, but losing two key pieces of your lineup in the process is a brutal tax. is a heavy forechecking presence, and Carlo eats massive defensive minutes. Pulling both of them out of the rotation mid-game forces the rest of the bench to skate in quicksand to cover the gaps.
The NHL's disciplinary wheel of justice is notoriously unpredictable, but a knee-on-knee hit usually guarantees at least a phone hearing. For context, trying to defend the without your shutdown defenseman is like trying to put out a grease fire with a water pistol.
That is exactly the problem faces next. The have to turn right around and play the Avalanche in on Saturday night. Anyone looking at the puckline for that matchup needs to hit refresh on the ' morning skate updates, because a depleted blue line on a back-to-back is prime fade territory.
Meanwhile, the have their own problems to sort out. Getting blanked 4-0 on home ice is bad enough, but if Hintz misses any time from the Carlo collision, their center depth takes a massive hit just as they head to to play the .
We should get an update on 's timeline and Carlo's potential suspension before puck drop on Saturday. Until then, both teams are limping into the weekend with a lot more questions than answers.