Torey Krug to Undergo Ankle Surgery, Will Miss 2025 Season for St. Louis Blues

The St. Louis Blues will officially be without one of their veterans of the defensive core for the 2025 season.

It was announced on Tuesday morning that Torey Krug will undergo surgery on his left ankle, per general manager Doug Armstrong. The team didn’t say when Krug will have the surgery performed.

This wasn’t something that went unexpected, as his season-ending surgery was a likely possibility in July when they announced that their team doctors noticed pre-arthritic conditions on said ankle. His injury is a “cumulative result of a bone fracture suffered earlier in his playing career,” per a statement by the Blues earlier.

The specifics weren’t stated, but it’s likely a cause of the left ankle fracture he sustained in the second round of the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs while playing with the Boston Bruins. It cost him the final game of the series loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and also missed the first 11 games of the 2019 season while recovering from the fracture.

Table of Contents

1 Blues Lose a Veteran Piece to the Defensive Core in Torey Krug

Blues Lose a Veteran Piece to the Defensive Core in Torey Krug

St. Louis didn’t drastically overpay for his services, especially as the salary cap begins to rise, though Krug hasn’t exactly met expectations with them. While over halfway through the seven-year, $45.5 million contract he signed with the Blues in 2020, injuries aren’t a new thing for him, as he never played a full 82-game regular season, and he has missed at least five games in all four of his years in St. Louis. His 77 games played last season were his most in seven years.

The purpose of signing Torey Krug was to fill in the void that was vacated by Alex Pietrangelo’s departure for the Vegas Golden Knights in free agency in 2020. Just one year after captaining the Blues to the team’s first ever Stanley Cup in franchise history. Krug hasn’t been the all-around defender that Pietrangelo was, and it’s shown on his subpar possession numbers since landing at the Gateway City.

Through 255 games as a Blue, he has racked up 22 goals and 124 assists for 146 points with a -23 rating while averaging 20:54 per game, slightly more usage than in his nine years in Boston. Last season, his average ice time was 21:58, finishing as the third-most used defenseman behind Nick Leddy (22:22) and Colton Parayko (23:52). With Torey Krug on the ice, the Blues controlled 49.0% of shot attempts and 47.7% of expected goals.

Insurance for the Blues in Torey Krug’s Absence

The Blues have some reliable options on the defensive core to step into Torey Krug’s shoes. Fresh offer sheet acquisition Philip Broberg is likely going to get the first chance to replace the majority of Krug’s minutes. He was the Edmonton Oilers’ 8th overall selection in 2019, who the Blues signed to a two-year, $9.16 million contract that Edmonton declined to match. He had 38 points in 49 games with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors last season.

The danger is that he has seen limited minutes with the Oilers, with a career-high of 46 games played in the 2023 season. He played just 12 regular season games in 2024, though he was solid in the games he played in the Western Conference Final and Stanley Cup Final for the Oilers. However, top-four minutes out of the gate for Broberg is a very high-risk move for a Blues team with playoff aspirations. But doing so would make his $4.58 million cap space more tolerable should it all work out.

The backup option is Scott Perunovich, whose development has been delayed by a series of injuries. The now 26-year-old defenseman still has his fair share of offensive upside, with 17 assists in 54 contests for the Blues last season while averaging just 15:16 per game.

The Blues can place Torey Krug on the LTIR at any time, though they will have enough financial flexibility this season, regardless of putting him on the LTIR or the standard IR. They have over $2 million in cap space with an open roster spot, however, so placing him on the LTIR wouldn’t be that necessary. They’ll keep him on the standard IR for as long as possible so as to save enough cap space through the season.

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