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Blues lose Zach Sanford for a ‘couple of weeks’

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Dilip Vishwanat

Training camp serves as a time to evaluate fringe players, brief people on system tweaks, and maybe skate off a little bit of the summer vacation for the guys who aren’t in the best shape of their lives.

Even so, injuries still happen during this time, and it sounds like the St. Louis Blues experienced as much with Zach Sanford.

The team estimates that he’ll miss a “couple of weeks” with a shoulder injury suffered recently in training camp, as Chris Pinkert of the team website reports.

“About three minutes before it happened, I leaned over to one of the coaches and said ‘boy, Sandy really is looking good,’” Mike Yeo said. "(I’m) disappointed to see him go into the boards like that, but you always anticipate there will be injuries in training camp and early in the season. We’ve talked and bragged about the depth we have, so we’re still in a good spot here.”

Reports indicate that Dmitrij Jaskin delivered the hit that injured Sanford.

The Washington Capitals selected Sanford, 22, with the 61st pick of the 2013 NHL Draft. He was part of the package that the Blues received in the Kevin Shattenkirk trade.

This past season stood as his rookie year, as he scored eight points in 39 regular-season games split between the Blues and Capitals. Sanford was unable to score during the postseason, averaging just under 11 minutes per night in four playoff games for St. Louis.

Sanford is clearly still trying to find his way at the NHL level, so this setback must be painful (both figuratively and literally).