After playing a tough stretch of road games pre-Christmas, Blues need to focus on making home ice tougher place to play; Texier questionable due to illness; Hofer gets start in goal
Having three days to decompress and not do anything was the right medicine for the road-weary St. Louis Blues.
The Blues (16-16-4), who will host the suddenly surging Nashville Predators (11-17-7) today at 7 p.m. (FDSNMW, ESPN 101.1-FM), are already half way done with their road schedule that has seen some really long stretches away from home.
There will continue to be road trips and games sprinkled in, including the Discover NHL Winter Classic in Chicago on Tuesday, but the long trips – at least for the time being – are done. Now what the Blues have to do is focus on improving the home schedule and making Enterprise Center a tough place to play.
“It’s something we’re going to talk about throughout this month,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “Every day we’ll start harping on it. Today it’s more about getting back to our identity and playing to our identity. If we do that, I think the crowd will actually come in.”
The Blues are just 6-8-1 on home ice, and if they have any inkling on being a playoff team this season, that has to improve drastically.
Sixteen of their next 23 games will be on home ice.
“We have a great stretch of games coming up here at home,” Blues center Robert Thomas said. “Our home record’s something we really emphasize and want to improve. That’s a big focus of ours coming up the next couple weeks.
“Consistency is one thing. A big part that can fix that is just being more consistent, taking more pride on home ice. I think if you can do those two things, we’ll be doing well.”
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As for the lineup tonight, Joel Hofer will get the start in goal despite Jordan Binnington earning a 19-save shutout Monday, 4-0 against the Detroit Red Wings.
Alexandre Texier was not at the rink this morning after falling ill on Wednesday. If he’s not in the lineup tonight, Brandon Saad will play after being a healthy scratch the past two games.
“He fell ill during the course of the evening,” Montgomery said of Texier. “We’re hoping that he’ll be a player, but we won’t know until later this afternoon.”
It’s tough since Texier started to gain some really good traction on the last three-game road trip, including scoring a beautiful goal in the second period Monday.
“I think it started in Tampa and he was winning battles and his speed on top of pucks offensively and defensively was very noticeable,” Montgomery said. “And then I put him up on the power play that game at some point, and then I think his confidence gained in Florida and he made that high-end play for ‘Sunny’s goal. And he just kept playing. That’s why I used him in the 3-on-3 and then he earned the right to move up, to give us a different look up there because that Thomas line had not been scoring. Then they got out there and they scored. They were dominant right from the first period making plays. I thought he was leading them with a purpose and a pace. That’s why he’s been rewarded with more ice time. I don’t know if he’ll play tonight, but he’s going to get that opportunity again.”
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The Predators come in having won four of their past six games (4-1-1), including points in four straight (3-0-1). This was a team expected to contend this season after some of the high-end signings they made in the off-season, including Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei.
“Nashville presents its own problems, but we have to focus on ourselves,” Montgomery said. “Being off for three days, trying to get back the mental, how we were positioning ourselves mentally for how hard it is to win hockey games in this league, the little details and habits that we have to have in our offensive and defensive game. We played two complete games our last two games and we need to do that on home ice. We’re home now for a while and it’s been a while since we’ve been able to be rested and give our fans something to cheer about for 60 minutes and that’s what I’m looking forward to here developing over this next month.”
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Blues Projected Lineup:
Jake Neighbours-Robert Thomas-Pavel Buchnevich
Dylan Holloway-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou
Brandon Saad-Oskar Sundqvist-Zack Bolduc
Alexey Toropchenko-Mathieu Joseph-Nathan Walker
Cam Fowler-Colton Parayko
Philip Broberg-Justin Faulk
Ryan Suter-Tyler Tucker
Joel Hofer will start in goal; Jordan Binnington will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Scott Perunovich. Nick Leddy (lower body) and Radek Faksa (lower body) are out. Alexandre Texier (illness) is questionable.
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Predators Projected Lineup:
Filip Forsberg-Steven Stamkos-Jonathan Marchessault
Zachary L’Heureux-Ryan O’Reilly-Gustav Nyquist
Mark Jankowski-Tommy Novak-Luke Evangelista
Michael McCarron-Colton Sissons
Jeremy Lauzon-Roman Josi
Brady Skjei-Justin Barron
Adam Wilsby-Luke Schenn
Nick Blankenburg
Juuse Saros will start in goal; Justus Annunen will be the backup.
The healthy scratch includes Juuso Parssinen. Cole Smith (lower body) is out.
