ST. LOUIS – Joel Hofer gets the nod for the St. Louis Blues (2-1-0), who entertain the Chicago Blackhawks (1-2-1) on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. (TNT, HBO, MAX, ESPN 101.1-FM).
And before the conspiracy theorists think there’s a goalie controversy with the Blues, think again.
The starter, which is usually Jordan Binnington, tends to get – depending on the situation – anywhere from 55-60 games in a season, but with the Blues having a solid 1-2 punch, look for Hofer, who has played in 30 and 31 games in his two full seasons with the Blues, to perhaps get even more this season.
“I don’t see it being even, but I see it being closer to even than it was last year,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.
And when asked if it’s Hofer’s growth, the condensed schedule with the Winter Olympics to consider this year, Montgomery said, “Both. If you look at Binner’s career, more games he’s played, it’s just harder on the body, and being in the West, you switch time zones a lot more than you do in the East. You look at the goalies that play a lot, Martin Brodeur’s career, he was in the East. Tuukka Rask played a lot of games in Boston, he was in the East. The goalie in Tampa (Andrei Vasilevskiy), he’s in the East.”
But for Hofer, who was rock solid in his debut this season in a 4-2 win over the Calgary Flames on Saturday in which he made 27 saves, the growth has obviously been visible.
“I think his maturity of understanding the NHL of just the experience of playing it, understanding the flow of the game and understanding the importance of his position and how he commands the game,” Montgomery said. “He’s never had an issue with confidence and that’s why he is such a good goaltender. I don’t know any goaltender that I’ve ever met, and I’ve been fortunate to be around great goalies in my career. I’ve been around Patrick Roy, I’ve been around Martin Brodeur from growing up in Montreal, I’ve been around Cujo (Curtis Joseph) and as a coach, I’ve been around (Ben) Bishop and I’ve been around Binnington and in Boston, we had really high-end goaltenders. They want the net and they believe they’re going to make every save.
“He has a really good personality, he’s witty, he’s quick-witted, which I like. I like to laugh.”
The Blues know they can rely – and trust – whoever is in the net.
“He has confidence, very competitive,” Blues forward Pius Suter said of Hofer. “He doesn’t like to be scored on, even in practice. He gets angry at that, is very competitive, and you can tell that in games. He’s very quick, East-West. Made a couple huge saves for us in Calgary.
“It’s a confidence boost for the whole team having two great goalies, no matter who’s in. The goalie can steal you the game and that’s what they’ve been doing. Obviously we’ve still got to play the right way up front, but when you’ve got a lot of trust in them, it definitely helps.”
- - -
Tonight marks the Blues’ first matchup against the Blackhawks this season, and after sweeping the season series last year (three games), the Blackhawks (1-2-1) have been very competitive in their games thus far.
“A vastly improved hockey team, play a lot faster, have numbers around the puck all the time in every zone,” Montgomery said. “They’re doing a 1-1-3 in the neutral zone, which is always hard to penetrate through so game management, puck management’s going to be important for us.”
But with the Blues looking to build off their two-game Western Canada swing with wins over the Flames and Vancouver Canucks, they want to continue to build.
“I think it’s just the trust in our process and our habits,” Montgomery said. “Those things, along with game management, that’s the thing we need to continue to build.”
- - -
Instead of taking a day off on Tuesday and/or taking an optional skate on Wednesday, the Blues chose to skate and get their legs and body clocks back in order after being on the West Coast for a couple days.
“Winning’s fun,” Montgomery said after Tuesday’s practice. “It doesn’t matter if you’re beating your kids at fish. It’s still fun. It shows because the pace of practice was really good. We got what we wanted to get done in preparation for tomorrow night, and it’s hard. You learn through the experience of the league and I think the benefit of sports science, Ryan Podell (the team’s director of performance) has been excellent for us, and I consult with him nearly every day, either about practice or when we should practice, timing, how long practice should be and what type of drills, the length of drills. And we’ll do that again tomorrow in preparation for our morning skate to give ourselves the best opportunity. Everyone has at least three times a year, you’re at a big disadvantage coming back from the West Coast and you’re playing a team that’s in their own time zone.
“That’s why we’ll come in, we’ll do a morning skate, we’ll go 15-20 minutes because it’s a long time, it’s a late game too, which is a little beneficial for us coming back from the West Coast actually.”
The players have been through it, experienced it and sense the difference.
“I think Monty wanted us to skate today even if we got here late,” forward Mathieu Joseph said Tuesday. “Those time changes, a couple hours’ difference, a late night game tomorrow, I think it’s a good thing for us to get on the ice and get a little bit of reps and get our touches instead of not doing anything and waking up late (or) maybe just a workout or something. I think it’s good to have some reps because first game coming from out West is always hard. It was good that we skated today.”
- - -
Blues Projected Lineup:
Jake Neighbours-Robert Thomas-Pavel Buchnevich
Dylan Holloway-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou
Mathieu Joseph-Pius Suter-Jimmy Snuggerud
Alexander Texier-Nick Bjugstad-Nathan Walker
Cam Fowler-Colton Parayko
Tyler Tucker-Justin Faulk
Philip Broberg-Logan Mailloux
Joel Hofer will start in goal; Jordan Binnington will be the backup.
The healthy scratch will be Matthew Kessel. Oskar Sundqvist (lower body) and Alexey Toropchenko (lower and upper-body soreness) remain day to day.
- - -
Blackhawks Projected Lineup:
Colton Dach-Connor Bedard-Andre Burakovsky
Teuvo Teravainen-Frank Nazar-Tyler Bertuzzi
Ryan Donato-Jason Dickinson-Ilya Mikheyev
Ryan Greene-Lukas Reichel
Alex Vlasic-Sam Rinzel
Wyatt Kaiser-Louis Crevier
Matt Grzelcyk-Connor Murphy
Artyom Levshunov
Arvid Soderblom will start in goal; Spencer Knight will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Nick Foligno, who has taken a leave of absence to attend to his daughter, and Sam Lafferty. Landon Slaggert (lower body) and Joey Anderson (lower body) are out.