Jake Allen will miss the start of camp thanks to back spasms

Last season, many members of the St. Louis Blues were incapacitated during training camp and pre-season, such as Robby Fabbri and Jay Bouwmeester. This season, we don’t even have to wait for camp to start to get the first doozy of an injury of the year.

Jake Allen will miss the first ten to 14 days of training camp with back spasms.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Blues training camp without more than one injury. Goalie Luke Opilka is out for the foreseeable future after having hip surgery, and Erik Foley was concussed as the Baby Blues battled to a sixth place showing at Traverse City.

Allen is one of the biggest topics of debate heading into training camp (and was going to be part of this site’s camp preview, which thankfully isn’t written yet). Last season Allen suffered a January slump on top of stretches before and after where he saw minimal goal support. His rebounding from a season that wound up with a stats line that included a 2.75 GAA and a .906 save percentage is an absolute must if the Blues want to return to the playoffs. Thanks to a bad back, he’s now missing key training camp time and could be an even bigger question heading into this season than he already was.