Pavel Buchnevich missed the St. Louis Blues’ game against the Minnesota Wild on Thursday after returning to St. Louis for the birth of his child, leaving the club to adjust its forward group on a night it wanted to keep building momentum. Zach Dean went back into the lineup because of the absence, and Jim Montgomery had to reshuffle his third and fourth lines before puck drop.
The timing mattered because Buchnevich had just delivered three assists in Tuesday’s 7-2 win over the Ottawa Senators and had five points, including one goal and four assists, in six games this season. He also entered Thursday plus-3, and his absence came against a Wild team with a 4-2-1 record while the Blues sat at 3-2-1.
Montgomery said the Blues needed to do better on the road and had a chance to win three in a row, a stretch they had not managed in October since opening the 2022-23 season with three straight wins. That made Buchnevich’s absence more than a personal matter for the lineup sheet. It removed one of their more productive forwards just as they were trying to turn recent results into something that looked like a run.
The Blues were already short on bodies up front, with Alexey Toropchenko out because of an upper body injury and Dillon Dube sidelined by a neck injury. Buchnevich had also been a key piece of a penalty kill that was 17-for-19, an 89.5 percent success rate that ranked seventh in the league, so his absence reached into special teams as well as five-on-five play. Zach Dean was set to center the fourth line, while Pius Suter moved up into the lineup on the third line after scoring two goals and adding an assist on Tuesday.
Joel Hofer was projected to start in goal for the Blues, with Jordan Binnington backing him up. On the other side, Jesper Wallstedt was projected to start for the Wild, with Calvin Pickard as the backup. Minnesota was also without Jared Spurgeon, Marcus Foligno, Nick Foligno, Brock Faber, Olli Maatta, Filip Gustavsson and Nico Sturm, but the night still turned on how St. Louis handled the loss of Buchnevich while trying to keep its own early-season push moving forward.
The next question is simple: how soon Buchnevich returns. The Blues did not say that on Thursday, and for now they have to manage a forward group that lost one of its most useful pieces for a game that mattered to their rhythm as much as their record.
