LOS ANGELES – St. Louis Blues defenseman Colton Parayko will undergo a scope on his left knee and be re-evaluated in six weeks, the club announced Thursday. The timeline likely means that Parayko will be out for the remainder of the 2024-25 regular season.
The announcement comes at the most inopportune time for the Blues, who are 6-1-1 in their past eight games and pulled to within a point of the No. 2 wild-card spot in the Western Conference standings on Wednesday.
Parayko, 31, is having a career year offensively with 15 goals and 35 points in 62 games. He’s also been a stalwart defensively, averaging the 19th most ice time in the NHL (23:51).
He was injured when he lost his footing and fell in overtime of Wednesday night’s shootout win over the Kings, Blues coach Jim Montgomery told The Athletic.
Here’s the play late in OT last night in which Parayko fell and appears to suffer the injury. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/jvF3tdvvTm
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 6, 2025
The Blues have one extra defenseman on their roster, Tyler Tucker, but with the NHL deadline Friday, they have time to make an addition to the lineup.
What does it mean for the Blues’ playoff chances?
The Blues have been playing some incredible hockey lately, and Parayko has been a huge part of it. You’d hate to say it’s impossible to make the playoffs now, but without him, it certainly feels that way.
There’s no one on the roster who can fill his nearly 24 minutes of ice time per game as well as he plays. They’d have to find someone outside the organization before the deadline, and it wouldn’t be worth the cost for a player who likely couldn’t come close to filling his shoes.
How can they replace him internally?
The only way for the Blues to fill out their defensive core with the players they already have would be to bump Ryan Suter up the lineup. And Suter did play up the lineup admirably earlier this season, but that’s not sustainable.
From there, they’d need to bring Tyler Tucker back into the lineup after being a healthy scratch for the past couple of weeks. Likewise, Tucker has been strong since being called up from the AHL earlier this season, but these two moves would be complete patchwork trying to make it work. There’s no actual replacing Parayko.
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