Blues lose Dillon Dube 8 weeks with neck injury

The bad news landed Saturday morning, a few hours before puck drop at Enterprise Center.

Jeremy Rutherford

@jprutherford

Blues announce Dube will be re-evaluated in eight weeks after suffering a neck injury in the San Jose game. #stlblues

General manager Alexander Steen announced it. Note the wording, too: 8 weeks is when Dube gets re-evaluated, not when he comes back. Neck injuries don't follow a schedule, so the Blues are planning for him to be gone into December, and that's if the check-up goes well.

Dube is 28 and played 3 of the Blues' first 4 games, with 1 goal. He isn't a top-line guy, but he has 328 career NHL games and 128 points (58 goals, 70 assists). He's a bottom-6 forward with some bite, and that kind of depth is exactly what a team misses in October and November when the schedule stacks up.

The San Jose game hurt in more ways than one. St. Louis lost its 3rd straight home opener and got only 1 point out of a night Jim Montgomery felt his team had in hand. "I thought we were in complete control of the game, and we need to be comfortable winning 2-1," Montgomery said afterward. Losing a game you controlled is bad enough. Losing a forward for 2 months in it too is worse.

The other storyline tonight is in net, where Montgomery is going back to the guy who got lit up last time.

Matthew DeFranks

@MDeFranks

Jim Montgomery said Jordan Binnington will start in goal tonight vs. Columbus.

Binnington allowed 6 goals on 36 shots to Colorado in his only start this season, and right now he's behind Joel Hofer on the depth chart. Hofer made 24 saves on 27 shots against the Sharks. Saturday is Binnington's chance to win some of that trust back against a Columbus team scoring 3 goals per game and coming off a 3-2 shootout win in Pittsburgh.

As for who fills Dube's minutes, here's the projected lineup. Connor McMichael, who leads the team with 4 points, centers the 2nd line between Mason McTavish and Berggren, and Dube is nowhere in the forward group.

Jeremy Rutherford

@jprutherford

#stlblues projected lineup vs. Columbus: Holloway-Thomas-Snuggerud
McMichael-McTavish-Berggren
Neighbours-Dvorsky-Buchnevich Johnston-Suter-Dean Broberg-Jiricek
Barron-Parayko
Fowler-Carlo Binnington

Puck drop is 6 p.m. CT. The Blues still don't have a regulation home win this season, and this is a good spot to get 1. Watch whether Binnington steadies things, whether the reshuffled bottom 6 can handle Dube's minutes, and whether Montgomery gets the boring 2-1 win he was asking for on Thursday.