ST. LOUIS — The player who was off to the best start individually for the St. Louis Blues this season is expected to return soon.

Jake Neighbours, who had six goals in eight games before being sidelined by a leg injury Oct. 25, will travel on the Blues’ five-game road trip, which opens with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday. He won’t play against the Leafs but is expected to at some point on the trip. St. Louis plays the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday, the New York Islanders on Saturday, the New York Rangers on Nov. 24 and the New Jersey Devils on Nov. 26.

“We expect him to be a player at some point on the trip,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.

Neighbours was injured five minutes into the second period of a 6-4 loss to the Detroit Red Wings in late October. He was placed on injured reserve on Oct. 28, and the Blues said that he would be reevaluated in five weeks. If he returns against Philadelphia, that would be 24 days since the announcement.

After scoring his second goal of the game, Neighbours blocked a point-blank shot by the Red Wings’ Axel Sandin-Pellikka with his right leg. He stayed in the game and finished with nearly 14 minutes of ice time.

“Obviously, it hurt, and I was laboring skating,” Neighbours said. “But then (Robert Thomas) went down early in the third period, and once Thomer went down, I just felt like I needed to do what I could to finish out that game and just give us an extra body.

“It was painful the next couple of days. I got an MRI, got some eyes on it, and it was a little more serious than we thought. I didn’t really expect for the results to come back that way, but sometimes those are the (bad) bounces you get.”

As recently as a couple of weeks ago, Neighbours was walking at Enterprise Center on crutches, but he quickly progressed to skating on his own and then joining the team. He participated in his first full practice Monday.

“In terms of the recovery process, it’s gone smoothly — as encouraging as it can be when you’re injured,” he said. “(Blues athletic trainer Ray Barile) and his team have done a great job with me, making sure I’m getting the things I need to speed up recovery.

“Once I got off the crutches, I started to integrate biking and moving around a little bit more, and as the swelling has gone away, I got my range of motion back and I’ve been able to do more things.”

Despite missing 11 games, Neighbours still shares the team lead in goals with Jordan Kyrou (six). The Blues have gone 3-5-3 without him, with their goals per game dropping from 3.00 when he was injured (17th in the NHL) to 2.64 since (27th). In Neighbours’ absence, Kyrou and Dylan Holloway are tied with a team-high four goals apiece.

In Monday’s practice, the Blues had Holloway, Robert Thomas and Jimmy Snuggerud on the top line, followed by Kyrou, Brayden Schenn and Dalibor Dvorsky on the second line. Neighbours could climb into that group of top-six forwards, and with 14 forwards currently on the roster, someone will have to be moved. Nick Bjugstad and Alexandre Texier were the extras in practice.

#stlblues practice lines:

Holloway-Thomas-Snuggerud
Schenn-Dvorsky-Kyrou
Joseph-Suter-Buchnevich
Toropchenko-Sundqvist-Walker
Extras: Bjugstad, Texier

Broberg-Parayko
Fowler-Faulk
Tucker-Kessel
Extra: Skinner

Binnington
Hofer

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) November 17, 2025

“The depth of a player that (Neighbours) adds to your top-six forwards, you can’t put enough on it,” Montgomery said. “We saw the impact Thomas had in his first game back (from injury) against Edmonton. (Neighbours is) just going to make us deeper and better.”

Neighbours was asked if he could pick up where he left off and replied: “Time will tell. I’m still confident in who I am as a player and how I was playing. I had a good feeling about my game when I got hurt, and I still have that feeling. Obviously, I’ll have to get back up to game speed. It’s been a month, and I missed over 10 games, so the speed of the game has probably gone up. But I’ve played enough games in this league now where I understand how to play and what I’m effective at, and I’ll be quick to get back to that.”

One thing was certain in talking to Neighbours on Monday: He wants to help the Blues get back in the winning column. He doesn’t think they’re in as bad of shape as it appears from the outside — or even among the players in the locker room.

“I don’t think it’s a lot,” Neighbours said. “When you’re in the room and you’re going through the highs and lows, it’s easy to kind of ride the emotional roller coaster. For me, being away from it, I haven’t had to ride the roller coaster. I’ve gotten to see things a little more clearly, and I don’t think we’re as far away as it may feel for guys that have been battling for this stretch.

“There’s areas that we need to clean up, but every team would say that at this point in the year. We’re just missing little things to click each night, where maybe some games go the other way. Hopefully, when I get back in the lineup, I can bring a new sense of energy, new juice and get us rolling. The road trip will be good for us to be together and get some good mojo going.”