ST. LOUIS — When the doors to the St. Louis Blues’ locker room opened Tuesday night, players’ equipment had been packed up and was already en route to the team’s practice facility.

One couldn’t help but notice, though, that the gear of forwards Jordan Kyrou, Jimmy Snuggerud, Alexey Toropchenko, Nathan Walker and Nick Bjugstad was still hanging in their respective stalls.

Bjugstad was the latest casualty, leaving the Blues’ 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins with an upper-body injury on Tuesday. That the team isn’t planning for him to be on the ice for Wednesday’s practice means he’s unlikely to make the trip for Thursday’s game against the Nashville Predators.

The Blues already could have four forwards in their lineup Thursday who started the season with AHL Springfield: Dalibor Dvorsky, Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, Matt Luff and Hugh McGing. If Bjugstad’s indeed out, a fifth Thunderbirds player could be on his way to St. Louis.

The Blues’ biggest issue isn’t the injury bug — the club was struggling long before the first of those injuries — but for a team that’s finally getting point production from its top two lines, losing players is making things difficult.

They were going for three straight wins Tuesday for the first time this season, and despite getting two goals from Robert Thomas on two assists from Pavel Buchnevich, the Blues fell to the Bruins by the same score they did five days earlier in Boston.

“They’re not AHL guys — they’re NHL guys and they’re playing for us,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “They helped us win two games. I understand the question, what you’re saying, but the Bruins play hard hockey. That team is finishing checks every time in the D-zone. You move the puck, you get hit. They make it hard to get to their net.

“We’ve got to be able to move pucks quicker and support each other in triangles like we like to do in the offensive zone to create a little more connectedness, which creates puck possession.”

Montgomery’s right, and that’s why it’s important to stress that Tuesday’s problems didn’t come from the call-ups. St. Louis played too loose defensively and didn’t spend nearly enough time in the offensive zone.

But with two goals from Boston’s Mark Kastelic, the Bruins’ fourth line feasted on the Blues’ bottom-six, including Dvorsky, Kaskimaki, Luff, as well as veteran Oskar Sundqvist.

“Yeah, it’s not easy to take guys in and out of the lineup that are everyday, impact guys when we’re still trying to find our game a lot more consistently,” Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said. “It’s tough, but the guys coming in are hungry, and you know they’re going to give their best effort and try to help the team as much as they can. There’s definitely no lack of energy from the new guys, which is always a good thing. We just have to find a way to keep it going and find some continuity.”

The Blues were starting to find some continuity in recent weeks.

Going into Tuesday’s game, they were 5-3-1 in their past nine games, and their top-nine forwards were doing most of the producing.

Buchnevich had led the way with three goals and seven points in those nine games, and he added the two assists against Boston. Dylan Holloway had three goals and eight points, followed by Brayden Schenn (four goals, seven points) and Thomas (one goal, five points), who added his pair against the Bruins.

If you picked Robert Thomas in your First Goal Vote, you’re a winner! pic.twitter.com/S6zSfpeHjF

— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) December 10, 2025

However, the long-awaited emergence of Buchnevich, and even of Thomas and Holloway, has coincided with the rash of injuries — first to Snuggerud and Toropchenko, then Walker and Kyrou.

The news with Kyrou, who was injured in Sunday’s 2-1 win over the Ottawa Senators, isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Montgomery confirmed Tuesday that an MRI exam on Kyrou’s left leg showed no serious damage, and he’s considered week to week.

“Not a specific return date,” Montgomery said. “We know it’s at least a week, and we’re labeling it week-to-week because we don’t know how quickly it will heal. (The MRI) is kind of what we thought it would be. We’re happy with the result, considering it could’ve been longer.”

But the injury count grew Tuesday with Bjugstad exiting the game early. He was hit into the boards by Boston’s Nikita Zadorov and appeared wobbly toward the end of a 90-second shift.

“Yeah, there’s nothing you can do,” Thomas said. “We all know how the schedule is — a lot of games, not a lot of time off and time to recover. It seems like every team has had their little spurt of the injury bug, whether it’s been at the start of the year or 10 games ago. This is our time, and it’s a good test for us. We’ve got to battle through it. It’s a big part of the season. We’ve got to really make a move here.”

What has two thumbs and two goals in this game?

THIS GUY 👇 pic.twitter.com/oQYGhXHSO7

— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) December 10, 2025

Somehow, the Blues are tied for the fewest wins in the NHL (11) this season but, even after Tuesday’s loss, are just two points behind the Utah Mammoth, who hold the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. They remain in striking distance with seven games to play before the Christmas break, but when they’ve yet to put together a three-game winning streak (0-3 after Tuesday), how long can they stay afloat?

The Blues recently changed their system in the defensive end from a zone system to a man-to-man system, and the overall takeaway has been some improvement in front of their net, which has also helped goaltenders Joel Hofer and Jordan Binnington.

“I think our players play with more intensity and our reads have been quicker,” Montgomery said before Tuesday’s game. “Our box outs have been significantly improved, and we’re spending less time in the D-zone.”

But it has appeared to come at the expense of some offense, which the coach somewhat expected.

“When you’re playing a zone, it’s a little easier to read, the turnover, than it is in a man-to-man because you’re standing in a position in an area more often,” Montgomery said. “We do have less O-zone time.”

That was an issue Tuesday, as the Blues had just three shots in the second period, when the Bruins turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.

Thomas believes the man-to-man defensive scheme shouldn’t have that kind of impact on the offense.

“I think it allows us to be more opportunistic,” he said. “Guys are closer to their checks. They can beat their checks on turnovers. I think we’ve just got to do a better job of getting that second man in quick. When a guy makes contact, if we get that second guy in, we can create a lot of opportunities, whether it’s on the rush or setting up the forecheck. We’ve just got to close time and space.”

Montgomery agreed that was an issue Tuesday.

“Yeah, you’ve got to sprint to win pucks,” he said.

The Blues were the last team in the NHL to win three straight games last season, and then eventually won 12 straight. But they weren’t as banged up as they are now, with none of the injured players guaranteed to return before the Christmas break.

Prospects Otto Stenberg or Dylan Peterson could be next in line to suit up in St. Louis, which would make it tougher to play more consistently as a team.

“You need streaks in a year,” Thomas said. “You need to continue to feel good. The last two games (Ottawa and Montreal) were tough road games. That’s a tough back-to-back, and we were able to find a way. We had a lot of confidence coming into (Tuesday) and just weren’t able to get it done. But same thing. We’ve got a tough back-to-back on the road (at Nashville) and back home (against Chicago). Two division teams that we really need to get, so just looking forward to that.”