The road trip continues for the St. Louis Blues (31-27-7), who go up against the Pittsburgh Penguins (26-31-10) from PPG Paints Arena on Thursday at 6 p.m.
It’s the fifth of a season-long six-game road trip that has been broken up into two parts, with the Blues returning home following their 2-1 overtime loss against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday, so they got to spend four nights in their own beds before finishing off the last two legs of the trip, which concludes Saturday against the Minnesota Wild.
As for the standings, the Blues sit now two points behind the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks after those two teams settled their game on Wednesday in a shootout, with the Canucks winning 3-2. Also, the Utah Hockey Club won, 3-2 against the Anaheim Ducks and pulled even with the Blues, so four teams are separated by two points in a logjam for the second wild card in the Western Conference. St. Louis, Vancouver and Utah all have 17 games remaining, Calgary has 18.
The Blues, according to coach Jim Montgomery, have done a good job of just living in the moment, which has enabled them to shave seven points off their deficit when they came back from the 4 Nations Face-Off, going 6-1-2 playing nine games in 15 days; they are 7-1-2 in the last 10.
“Since the break has started, every game has been important for us to be in the situation that we are, so we had to do the job early,” Montgomery said. “Now we just need to continue on that path. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We’ve seen our next opponent, Pittsburgh just beat Vegas (3-2 in overtime), so we’ve got to be focused on that next task at hand and bring that same attitude of we’re going to stay in the moment, we’re going to have a great start, and then we’re going to worry about the next shift, then we’re going to worry about the next period and then we’re going to worry about the 60 minutes.
“With that, we know the schedule is favorable right now. We’re going to play two teams where we’re going to playing back-to-backs again where they are not. They are rested waiting for us, so there’s another challenge that’s coming within that time frame. I think we’re in the midst of starting (10) in 17 days.”
Tonight does begin another tough stretch of games clustered into limited days, which includes three in the next four days where the Blues come home from Minnesota Saturday after a 7 p.m. start and play against the Ducks at 5 p.m. on Sunday.
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With the team rolling, the only lineup change is Cam Fowler, who missed Saturday for the birth of his son, will return and go in for Matthew Kessel, and Jordan Binnington, who has won six straight starts and is 7-0-1 the past eight games he’s started, will start in goal.
Also, forward Jordan Kyrou will play in his 400th NHL game tonight.
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Blues Projected Lineup:
Jake Neighbours-Robert Thomas-Pavel Buchnevich
Dylan Holloway-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou
Mathieu Joseph-Oskar Sundqvist-Zack Bolduc
Alexey Toropchenko-Radek Faksa-Nathan Walker
Cam Fowler-Nick Leddy
Philip Broberg-Justin Faulk
Ryan Suter-Tyler Tucker
Jordan Binnington will start in goal; Joel Hofer will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Alexandre Texier and Matthew Kessel. Colton Parayko (knee) is out. Torey Krug (ankle) is out for the season.
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Penguins Projected Lineup:
Rickard Rakell-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Connor Dewar-Evgeni Malkin-Philip Tomasino
Danton Heinen-Kevin Hayes-Emil Bemstrom
Bokondji Imama-Blake Lizotte-Noel Acciari
Vladislav Kolyachonok-Kris Letang
Matt Grzelcyk-Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves-Conor Timmins
Tristan Jarry will start in goal; Alex Nedeljkovic will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Matt Nieto and Sebastian Aho. P.O Joseph (upper body), Tommy Novak (lower body) and Ryan Shea (upper body) are out.
