Blues Defense Hits Rock Bottom as Logan Mailloux and Tyler Tucker Land on IR
The ' blue line is officially a disaster zone. Placing Logan Mailloux and Tyler Tucker on injured reserve is just the latest plot twist for a defense that already looked like it was playing on roller skates.
Tucker is dealing with a knee injury that leaves him week-to-week, while Mailloux joins him on the shelf. For a team currently sitting near the absolute bottom of the NHL standings, losing two defensemen is like throwing a deck chair off a sinking ship.
Tucker actually carved out a real role last season, logging 69 games and racking up 100 hits to go with 81 penalty minutes. He is the kind of physical, bottom-pairing guy who makes life miserable for opposing forwards, and losing his 14 minutes of ice time forces the Blues to dig even deeper into a prospect pool that is already running dry.
Mailloux’s season has been a rollercoaster that only goes down. After getting demoted to the AHL's Springfield Thunderbirds earlier this year to fix his game, hitting IR is a brutal setback for his development. Meanwhile, Jordan Binnington is stuck behind a defensive rotation that is giving up high-danger chances like they are free samples at Costco.
If you are looking at the betting markets, this is the kind of roster attrition that makes fading the an automatic reflex. When a team is already bleeding goals and suddenly loses its physical depth, opposing top lines tend to feast on the remaining spare parts.
Tucker is heading into unrestricted free agency next summer, making this knee injury a massive roadblock for his next contract. will have to patch together a defensive pairing before their next puck drop, but right now, the ' season is looking more like a salvage operation than a playoff push.