The St. Louis Blues and Philadelphia Flyers will be getting a pair of players back soon, as the teams announced conditioning stints for Robby Fabbri and Michal Neuvirth respectively. Fabbri will go to the San Antonio Rampage to try and finally make it back into game action, his first since the second half of 2016-17, while Neuvirth is headed for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms before retaking his place beside Brian Elliott in the NHL net.
There’s low expectations at this point for Fabbri, but that wasn’t so just a few seasons ago. The 22-year old forward was a blossoming star in St. Louis after being selected 21st overall in 2014 and scoring 18 goals and 37 points in his rookie season. The versatile forward was dangerous on offense and could play both center and the wing, proving his talents in the postseason with 15 points in 20 games to lead the team in 2016. That excellent play continued early into the next season before Fabbri would suffer a knee injury that sent him to the shelf. As he tried to come back, he re-injured the knee and would miss the entire 2017-18 season.
Now, with just a $925K salary and an uncertain place in the lineup, Fabbri is a wild card for the Blues. The team has built a solid group of forwards that includes several even younger options, and could be dangerous even if Fabbri can’t get back to the level he once showed. There’s a long time for him to still be an impact forward at the NHL level, but he’ll have to prove he can stay healthy and put the knee injury behind him before anyone puts any responsibility on his shoulders.
Neuvirth though is in a very different situation, as he tries to hold on to his role with the Flyers. Philadelphia has several young goaltenders pushing for NHL playing time, and even picked up Calvin Pickard while Neuvirth dealt with his injury. The 30-year old goaltender did record a .915 save percentage last season, but it was only in 22 games and it still only resulted in a 9-7-3 record. In the final season of his current contract, he’ll have to show more than he did last year to stick around and keep the seat warm for top prospect Carter Hart. He’ll need to stay healthy to even do that.
Neuvy will blow out his knee lacing his skates before the game tonight, you heard it hear first. Guy’s a decent goalie when he’s on a roll but physically the dude is softer than grandma’s holiday mashed potatoes!!
The only way Fabbri (aka Mr Glass) coming back helps Blues is if he plays Defense and Jay Bouwmeester retires. Just saying…..