Barret Jackman suffered a sprained ankle in Thursday’s 4-2 loss to Atlanta and was placed on the injured-reserve list today. He will miss a minimum of seven days, per IR rules, and right now the Blues are calling the injury ”week to week.”

Jackman was injured midway through the first period Thursday.

“I went to get a puck (behind the net), and had a guy on me,” Jackman said. ”I tried to turn back and kind of got clipped at the same time, and my leg crossed underneath me . . . he tried to get a piece of me and it turned out to be bad timing.”

Jackman left the game but returned to the bench late in the third period. He said it was painful last night, but it was even more sore this morning. Jackman was wearing a walking boot this morning.

“We’ll take it day to day here, do some rehab, and we’ll reevaluate it each day,” Jackman said.

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Blues coach Andy Murray said today that Alex Pietrangelo will make his season debut Saturday against Los Angeles. Pietrangelo has been a healthy scratch the first three games.

“It means that we get a chance to see Pietrangelo play, and we expect him to play well,” Murray said. “Barret Jackman is one tough customer and he’ll be back as soon as he can be. He played the most minutes on our blue line. Now there’s some ice time for other guys.”

Murray has said the last couple of days that he thinks Pietrangelo is ready.

“He just needs to play good,” Murray said. “He just needs to show us that he can play good at this level. He’s had a really good training camp and we’re excited to have him going in the lineup. It’s a great opportunity for him. It’ll be exciting to watch him play.”

These were the defensive pairings in practice today, and Murray anticipates they’ll stay the same for Saturday’s game:

Darryl Sydor-Roman Polak
Alex Pietrangelo-Erik Johnson
Carlo Colaiacovo-Mike Weaver

There’s a chance the Blues will recall a defensemen from Peoria before Saturday’s game. The Rivermen are in action tonight, so perhaps the team will wait until after their game. Tyson Strachan was the last player cut from the roster, so he’d be the logical call-up.

“I think we would have another defenseman come up,” Murray said. “We would want to have seven here in the event that . . . touch wood . . . anybody got nicked in warmup. It wouldn’t be fair to your team to go into the game with five defensemen.”

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Keith Tkachuk also sat out of practice today, but Murray said it was part of the plan to keep Tkachuk fresh all season.

With Tkachuk absent, the forward combinations looked like this:

Andy McDonald-David Backes-Paul Kariya
Brad Winchester-Patrik Berglund-Brad Boyes
Cam Janssen-T.J. Oshie-David Perron
Alex Steen-Jay McClement-B.J. Crombeen

The speculation has begun that after a listless team performance Thursday, Janssen may be included in the lineup Saturday. I asked Murray that question . . .

“We’d like to have Cam in the lineup every night,” Murray said. “Again, guys have to . . . we have to deem it worthy to take a guy out for him to play at this point. But I’d like Cam in the lineup every night.”

Murray mentioned a couple of days ago that two forwards were on the cusp of being removed from the lineup. When asked today if that list grew after Thursday’s loss, here’s how Murray put it: “Uh, I think the two stayed near the top, and there’s a couple of guys just nipping at their heals. That would be a fair statement.”

JR