MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- The St. Louis Blues could use a good neighbor right now.

Maybe they won’t get that neighbor, but they will get a Neighbour soon.

As in Jake Neighbours.

The Blues’ winger, who’s missed 11 games with a right leg injury, will miss another when the Blues (6-9-4) open a four-game road trip on Tuesday against the equally struggling Toronto Maple Leafs (8-9-2), but he will return at some point on the current road trip.

“He is going on the trip; we expect him to be a player at some point on the trip. It’s not tomorrow night,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “I think if he’s ahead of schedule, it’s like three days. It was a minimum four weeks, we thought maximum, five. He’s going to end up being in the 4-5 week span.”

Neighbours, who is tied for the team lead with six goals and has seven points in eight games, was injured blocking a shot on the second period of a 6-4 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Oct. 18, blocking a shot by Axel Sandin-Pellikka.

“It's been difficult obviously,” Neighbours said after practice Monday. “It's been a hard start to the year for me, away from hockey and now with the injury. It's been tough being away from the guys and being at home lots, is a lot of time to reflect and think about things.

“In terms of the recovery process, it's been very encouraging. It's gone smoothly. It’s gone pretty well, as encouraging as it can be when you're injured. Ray (Barile) and his team have done a great job with me making sure I'm getting the things I need to speed up recovery or whatever it may be. It obviously sucks being out, especially when your team’s struggling. It's hard to sit there and watch and not have an impact. I'm just excited to be back around them, back at practice, and hopefully get to play here soon.”

The shot block was so impactful, Neighbours barely was able to get to his skates, somehow finish the shift and limp to the bench. It appeared he’d be done for the game but somehow finished the game.

“Yeah. I don’t know (how),” Neighbours said. “To me it didn't feel as serious at it seemed. Obviously it hurt, I was laboring skating and stuff like that. But then ‘Tommer’ (Robert Thomas) went down early in that third period and we were able to do some things in the second period to kind of get (the leg) moving a little better. You know, once ‘Tommer’ went down, I just felt like I needed to do what I could to finish out that game and just give us an extra body. Then honestly, it was painful the next couple of days, but it wasn't to a point where we thought it was something this serious and I was going to be out this long. But obviously I got an MRI, got some eyes on it that needed to be and it was a little more serious than we thought. Like I said, I didn't really expect for the results to come back that way, but sometimes those are the bounces you get.”

The Blues initially said Neighbours would be reevaluated in five weeks, which would have put him roughly into the first week of December. He was on crutches initially, but the Blues play games Thursday against the Philadelphia Flyers, Saturday against the New York Islanders, Nov. 25 against the New York Rangers and Nov. 27 against the New Jersey Devils.

“Yeah, just a credit to Ray and his team, understanding what to do with the certain injury I had and how to handle it properly,” Neighbours said. “I think for me it was just ... when you're injured, you've got nothing else to do but rehab it. For me, it was spend the extra time on it, trying to get it moving, trying to get swelling out of it, whatever I can do myself to speed up the recovery process and get myself back moving regularly. It was what I was trying to do. Once I got off the crutches, started to integrate biking and moving around a little bit more, and as the swelling’s kind of gone away, I got my range of motion back and I've been able to do more things.”

Neighbours produced early in the season, following the emotional tragedy of losing close friend Orca Wiesblatt to an automobile accident on Sept. 14, and then the injury occurred. The Blues would definitely get a shot in the arm of he can pick up where he left off.

“I think time will tell,” Neighbours said. “I'm still confident in who I am as a player and how I was playing. I think I had a good feeling about my game when I got hurt, and I still have that feeling. Obviously I'll have to get back up to game speed. It's been a month and I missed over 10 games, so the speed of the game’s probably gone up. It always does throughout a year, it just faster and faster as you head towards playoffs. I'm sure it will take a little bit of adjusting, but I've played enough games in this league now where I think I understand how to play and what I'm effective at, and I think I'll be quick to get back to that.”

St. Louis Blues Weekly Prospect Report (Nov. 16) Adam Jiricek stays red hot for top team in OHL; Mailloux scores first goal in Springfield; Carbonneau continues to shoot and score

For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.