Now the Blues will wait.

Star center Robert Thomas suffered a lower-body injury in the third period of the Blues' 3-2 loss to the Jets on Tuesday night after blocking a shot and did not return. Blues coach Drew Bannister said he would undergo an X-ray on Tuesday evening but provided no further update beyond that.

Thomas blocked Jets defenseman Neal Pionk's slap shot 92 seconds into the third period and only had two shifts the rest of the night. However, he assisted on both of Brandon Saad's goals on Tuesday, marking Thomas' second multi-point game of the season.

Saad's goals were the only ones in St. Louis on Tuesday night as the Blues were unable to overcome a three-goal second-half lead by the Jets, who turned a 1-0 Blues lead into a 3-1 Winnipeg lead . Jordan Binnington made 21 saves in the loss and Winnipeg's Cole Perfetti had three assists, helping on goals from Nino Niederreiter, Colin Miller and Kyle Connor, respectively.

“They're such an explosive team, you give it a little gas and they take advantage of it,” Blues defenseman Ryan Suter said. “That happened there in the second. … We never established this prior check. I think in the third game we had the mindset that we were going to play at the end and we did that. We were able to get one, but unfortunately not two.”

Saad scored his first two goals of the season on Tuesday, both on rebounds in front of the net.

Thomas is the latest Blues player to spark an early injury scare. Alexandre Texier returned Tuesday after missing two weeks with an upper-body injury. Nick Leddy missed his third game with a lower-body injury. Alexey Toropchenko missed his second game with a lower-body injury. And Oskar Sundqvist hasn't played yet as he recovers from knee surgery.

Thomas did not play for the final 11:46 minutes of the game, leaving the ice 12 seconds after completing a defensive zone faceoff on his final shift of the night.

Without Thomas, the Blues used Pavel Buchnevich up front between Saad and Jordan Kyrou. They also came across Radek Faksa to play with Alexandre Texier and Jake Neighbors. Dylan Holloway, Brayden Schenn and Mathieu Joseph stayed together as a line.

“I don’t think we had any passengers tonight,” Bannister said. “I thought the effort was there from start to finish. Our boys fought, they worked hard. I felt like all 12 strikers, all 11 strikers were going to leave at that point. Next man up mentality.”

During a fruitless power play in the third period with a chance of a tie, the Blues used Schenn on the top power play unit while Texier moved to the second unit. The Blues struggled to gain control of the zone, registering just one shot on goal and two shot attempts during the man advantage following a delay-of-game penalty from the Jets.

“We weren’t able to establish ourselves and get the pucks back,” Bannister said. “A little bit of what happened to us in the second period was just us making sure we had numbers and got the puck back before we got to our position. I thought we were more focused on position rather than getting the puck back first and getting back into our positions.”

The Blues had one last chance to tie the game in the final minute of the game when Schenn lined up at the back post but failed to grab a loose rebound.

“I just had the open net and I went to hit the rolling puck and I think it hit the tip of my stick,” Schenn said. “I didn’t understand everything.”

The Blues can ill afford to lose Thomas for an extended period of time because of this injury, and the team should know more when it practices at 11 a.m. Wednesday before flying to Toronto to begin a four-game road trip.

Despite missing half a period on Tuesday, Thomas leads the Blues in the standings by almost 11 minutes over Buchnevich. Thomas and Schenn are the only Blues forwards who average at least a minute per game on both the power play and penalty kill. Only two NHL players have taken more faceoffs than Thomas this season, and only one player in the league (with more than 70 faceoffs) has won a higher percentage than Thomas.

Thomas has six points in his seven games and is looking to build on his 86-point season a year ago.

“I think it’s just the next man up mentality,” Saad said. “Of course you can’t replace this guy. He's incredible, but at the same time you have to keep playing. You have to fight back. No matter the situation, we have to focus on winning hockey games.”