Robby Fabbri, the Blues forward who tore knee ligaments last season and had surgery to fix it, will miss the entire 2017-18 season after reinjuring it, the Blues announced on Wednesday.
Fabbri missed the final 30 games and the playoffs last season, but was cleared to return to action over the summer and played in the Blues' preseason game at Washington on Sept. 22.
He re-injured the knee _ the Blues haven't said exactly when _ and was shut down two days later.
Fabbri played the full game against the Capitals, with 19:08 of ice time, the second most among Blues forwards in the game. Afterward, he talked to reporters with an ice bag on his repaired left knee, but didn't speak of any pain or difficulties.
The next day, coach Mike Yeo said there were no after-effects from Fabbri's first game in seven months.
One day later, the Blues said he would miss the remainder of camp.
Asked how he felt after the Washington game, Fabbri said, "Good. It was exciting. Good to get back out there again. You really see the difference there in a game than in a scrimmage against the guys. I thought it was a good first game. Glad to get my feet wet and keep going from here."
"He's a competitive kid," Yeo said the day after the Washington game, "and what I liked was he didn't appear to be shying away. As someone who's dealt with the injury before, I know there's a mental hurdle to get over and I thought he did a real nice job of that, not shying away from traffic. He went into the hard areas, he was first on pucks, he was battling hard. If I were to say he was a good player in the game, he's not as good as Robby Fabbri could be and that's perfectly normal. That's what I would expect from him. So for me, it was a really good first step for him. It's going to take a little bit of time and I think you'll see each and every game he plays right now he'll continue to find his rhythm and find his timing and his execution. It's normal when you haven't played as long as he has, the game happens a little bit quickly and for a player like Robby, things will slow down quickly."
Asked if what Fabbri needed now was just games, Yeo said, "That's the next step. He has worked himself back into shape and the games are the next step."
Fabbri had been a late scratch from the Blues' first preseason game, against Dallas on Sept. 19. "When you're dealing with injury like that," Yeo said at the time, "there's scar tissue, sometimes there's a little bit of pain here and there, but nothing that we didn't anticipate and is not expected."
Fabbri had 18 goals and 19 assists as a rookie in 2015-16 and then 11 and 18 in 51 games last season before getting hurt. The team looked at him at center at the start of camp, but used him on the wing in his only game, saying it would be less taxing on him.
