TORONTO — Whenever the St. Louis Blues play in Toronto, it’s a homecoming for Robert Thomas. He grew up in nearby Aurora, Ontario, where his parents, Scott and Debbie, still live. When the Blues played at Scotiabank Arena last February, the family hosted a big crowd at Real Sports Restaurant near the rink.
This time, Thomas stayed back in St. Louis with a fractured ankle that suffered while blocking a shot in a 3-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets Tuesday.
As much as Mom and Dad missed him on the trip, the Blues expect to miss him more over the next six weeks, after which he’ll be re-evaluated.
Thomas is the Blues’ reigning point producer with 86 last season, and he was on a similar track this year with six points in seven games. He’s their best defensive player, assigned nightly to shut down the opposition’s top line and often getting that job done. And he’s turned himself into one of the top faceoff specialists in the NHL over his seven seasons in the league.
As professional athletes typically do publicly, the Blues were taking the news of Thomas’ injury in stride when they got to the rink Wednesday morning.
“He’s our best player, he’s a guy that drives the bus for us, but at the end of the day, it’s part of the game and we’re going to need everyone to step up, myself included,” captain Brayden Schenn said. “You never want to see anyone go down, let alone your star player, but this is a chance for everyone to come together and play for one another.”
Robert Thomas has a fractured ankle and will be re-evaluated in six weeks.
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The team’s first game without Thomas couldn’t have been a bigger test.
Toronto had its worst effort of the young season Tuesday, a 6-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, and was looking for a bounce-back game. The Leafs wanted to win one for coach Craig Berube against the team that fired him last December. And, well, they have Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner on their roster.
“We can’t come in here thinking we’re going to outskill the Toronto Maple Leafs,” Blues coach Drew Bannister said before the game. “What we do here tonight has got to be work-based to get our opportunities.”
A work-based effort is exactly what the Blues got Thursday, which led to a 5-1 victory over the Leafs, and they’ll need more performances like that if they’re going to withstand Thomas’ extended absence.
There were examples all over the ice: Jordan Kyrou’s forechecking leading to goals, Mathieu Joseph’s backchecking preventing goals, Oskar Sundqvist’s hustle in his first game back from a torn knee ligament last March, and more.
But there was no greater evidence than the fact that the Blues won the battle against Toronto’s top line of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies. They outscored the line 2-0 in five-on-five goals, according to Natural Stat Trick.
The Leafs’ trio had 7:04 of five-on-five ice time together, and the Blues’ line of Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich and Alexandre Texier were on the ice for 5:34 of that. They not only held them off the board, but they didn’t allow a scoring chance.
That’s the type of assignment that would have gone to Thomas, who ranks No. 4 in the NHL in expected goals for (62.04 percent). But without him, the Blues more than handled themselves.
“I just thought there was a commitment,” Bannister said. “Our mindset has to be that we’re going to win 1-0 games, and if we end up winning 4-1 or 5-1, great. We have to be comfortable playing in those games, and that has to be our mindset.”
| Player | Expected goals for % |
|---|---|
 Nathan MacKinnon |
66.56
|
 Leon Draisaitl |
63.76
|
 Anton Lundell |
62.19
|
 Robert Thomas |
62.07
|
 Tage Thompson |
61.78
|
The Blues won this one, 5-1, and if they continue to get star performances out of Kyrou, as they did on Thursday, perhaps they can get along without Thomas.
“He’s a team-first player right now,” Bannister said. “He’s playing team hockey. He wants to win hockey games and he’s doing whatever it takes right now to win hockey games.”
On the team’s first goal, Kyrou put on a skating clinic before Philip Broberg scored his second goal of the season on a point shot.
“That first goal, I loved the cutbacks,” Blues center Dylan Holloway said. “His feet were moving all night. You could tell he was pretty juiced up playing in his hometown.”
Speaking of Holloway, he had two goals Thursday, one on the power play and an empty-netter. With Thomas out of the lineup, he moved to the No. 3 center position and played a season-high 17 minutes, 21 seconds in the game.
“I’ll play any position that the coach wants me to,” Holloway said. “I like playing center. It’s a little more responsibility, but you get more touches. It’s been a small sample size so far, but I’m just trying to build on (it each) game.”
In addition to Holloway, Oskar Sundqvist can also help the Blues at center. He returned to the lineup Thursday for the first time since March 25, when he suffered a torn ligament. He played on the wing Thursday, but after easing his way back in, said he’d be able to play in the middle soon.
“I thought Sunny was outstanding,” Bannister said. “For a guy that’s been off as long as he has, not having a training camp, it was just a great effort. Now that Robby’s out, he can both play wing and center. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
The only category where the Blues seemed to miss Thomas in Toronto, and it was expected, was in the face-off circle. He ranks second in the NHL on the dot (62.6 percent) among centers with 100-plus minutes played this season.
| Player | Faceoff % |
|---|---|
|
Leon Draisaitl |
66.4
|
|
Robert Thomas |
62.6
|
 Barrett Hayton |
60.5
|
 Vincent Trocheck |
59.7
|
 Nico Hischier |
58.8
|
The Blues were leading the Leafs 2-0 with under a minute left in the first period. The Blues iced the puck, leading to a defensive-zone faceoff with just four ticks left on the clock in the period. The draw was to the left side of goalie Jordan Binnington, and Matthews stepped into the circle for the Leafs.
That would normally be Thomas’ assignment, but this faceoff belonged to Schenn. He won the puck to teammate Broberg, who skated out the clock to preserve the two-goal lead at the intermission.
The Blues, however, won just 32 percent of their draws against the Leafs. Schenn was 5-for-17 and Buchnevich was 4-for-15.
“I don’t think I was great tonight, but (Toronto) has good faceoff guys,” Schenn said. “I don’t know what our percentage was. It probably wasn’t great, but that’s something we definitely have to work on.”
And Bannister says they will.
“That’s a part of the game we can work on,” Bannister said. “Previous to that, we’ve been really good. Robby is a big part of that, and we’re going to miss that. But guys have to find ways. We’ve got to find different ways. Our wingers have to help out. But the guys are trying. They’re working on it, so we’ll continue to work on it.”
Who knows how the Blues will fare for the next month or so without Thomas. But for one night, they provided the effort they knew they needed, and it was enough.
“We played hard,” said Binnington, who finished with 41 saves. “We’ve lost one of our better players, and it’s really good to see everyone not skip a beat and just play our game. We believe in each other to get the job done, and that was a great team win tonight.”
(Photo: Chris Tanouye / Getty Images)
