(10-19-24) Carolina Hurricanes-St. Louis Blues Gameday Lineup

ST. LOUIS -- Add Alexey Toropchenko's name to the list of minor injuries.

The forward will miss the game against the Carolina Hurricanes (2-1-0) on Saturday at 6 p.m. (BSMW, ESPN101.1-FM) with a lower-body injury.

In his place, Nathan Walker, who was a healthy scratch in a 1-0 overtime win against the New York Islanders on Thursday, will step in.

"He's dealing with a little bit of a lower-body injury. Right how with the healthy forwards that we have, we want to make sure we have him at 100 percent because we have other guys that are at 100 percent right now," Blues coach Drew Bannister said of Toropchenko. "I don't foresee it being something long term. It's probably a day to day thing with him right now but we want to make sure he's healthy when he comes back to play."

The Blues (3-2-0) can afford to allow guys to heal minor bumps and bruises with the depth the lineup has and guys that they're comfortable with stepping in and playing, like Walker.

"It's early in the season," Bannister said. "We don't want to have too many things lingering. When you come out of training camp, you're always going to have certain things lingering, whether it's groin, hip flexors, abdominals. I'm sure every team's going through it right now. Usually it takes 10, 15, 20 games for the players to kind of work themselves through it. But with the healthy bodies and certainly with our depth, we want to be able to use that to make sure that we can keep these nicks and bumps under wraps and get rid of them as quickly as we can."

Defenseman Nick Leddy remains sidelined with a lower-body injury, meaning he will miss a second straight game and could be out Tuesday as well.

"We haven't seen a lot of improvement in him," Bannister said. "He's certainly going to be out tonight. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but just with not having the improvement we thought we might see over two days, I think eve Tuesday could be a question."

Forwards Oskar Sundqvist (ACL) and Alexandre Texier (upper body) skated once again and keep gearing towards being activated but it won't be tonight.

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Goalie Joel Hofer will get his second straight start tonight after a 34-save shutout performance on Thursday in which he also picked up an assist on the game-winner.

Hofer is 2-0-0 on the season with a 1.98 goals-against average and .937 save percentage.

"Certainly he played great and both goalies have played well," Bannister said. "I think it also gives us the ability to give 'Binner' a little bit more rest. He's going to play a lot for us. He's going to play a lot of hockey this year. I think we just look at it as an opportunity to go with Joel but also an opportunity to give 'Binner' a little bit of rest before we go on the road and in different cities."

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The Hurricanes are coming off a 4-1 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday and are playing the second of back-to-back games, which means likely Pyotr Kochetkov will be in goal after Frederik Andersen made 25 saves on Friday.

"They are who they are, right? They're a working team, they skate," Bannister said of the Hurricanes. "They're a team that just keeps coming at you. Their back end's changed a little bit, but the way they played hasn't changed. The aggressiveness, their forwards (are) big, strong, they want to wear you down, there's going to be a lot of pucks to our net. That's a team that funnels a lot of pucks. We're going to have to be physical, we're going to have to be strong along the walls, we're going to have to be good net front, we're going to have to get in the shooting lanes, we're going to have to win races to pucks here tonight. We're going to have to skate. We have to be willing to skate here and we have to use that ability to skate to match their intensity and their physicality. They're coming off a road game last night, traveling in here. That first period's going to be very important to for us to really use our ability to skate. We're also going to have to get on bodies and slow them down. We're going to have to find ways to slow them down through the neutral zone."

It'll be a bit of a different kind of matchup as opposed to Thursday when the Blues played against a disciplined Islanders group and had to play a patient game.

"Fast, aggressive and one of these games where you've got to come in and expect that you're not going to get a lot of free offense," Blues captain Brayden Schenn said of Carolina. "They play the right way, they for one another and that's what's made them a good team for so many years. They're well-coached and they've played together. We've got to expect to come in and just grind another one out."

With the Blues offense having a tough go of it right now with two goals in two games since returning home, they may have to play a grinding game again.

"We're grinding to score a little bit right now and we know that, but as long as we're playing good defense and limiting chances, goals will come," Schenn said. "We feel as a team right now, we're not giving up a whole lot. We've just got to stick to the program a little bit and goals will come."

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Zack Bolduc continues to make his case to stay in St. Louis after another strong game on Thursday.

Bolduc has just one assist in four games but made his presence felt with a physical element to his style.

"I think I played well," Bolduc said. "For sure, you always want to create more offense and score some goals and make some plays, but it was a hard game to play. Not much time and not any space. I think I went in there to compete. I was physical the last game, but I think that's the thing I can do and I want to bring it to my game.

"I got some looks, I'm making plays. I think I'm playing well, but things just are not going in and my passes are not working. I've just got to keep doing it and I'm pretty sure things will turn my way."

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Blues Projected Lineup:

Brandon Saad-Robert Thomas-Jordan Kyrou

Zack Bolduc-Pavel Buchnevich-Jake Neighbours

Dylan Holloway-Brayden Schenn-Mathieu Joseph

Nathan Walker-Radek Faksa-Kasperi Kapanen

Ryan Suter-Colton Parayko

Philip Broberg-Justin Faulk

P.O. Joseph-Matthew Kessel

Joel Hofer will start in goal; Jordan Binnington will be the backup.

The healthy scratch is Scott Perunovich. Nick Leddy (lower body), Alexey Toropchenko (lower body), Alexandre Texier (upper body), Oskar Sundqvist (knee) and Torey Krug (ankle) are out.

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Hurricanes Projected Lineup:

Andrei Svechnikov-Sebastian Aho-Seth Jarvis

Jack Roslovic-Jesperi Kotkaniemi-Martin Necas

Jordan Martinook-Jordan Staal-William Carrier

Eric Robinson-Jack Drury-Jackson Blake

Jaccob Slavin-Brent Burns

Shayne Gostisbehere-Sean Walker

Dmitry Orlov-Jalen Chatfield

Pyotr Kochetkov is projected to start in goal; Frederik Andersen would be the backup.

The healthy scratch includes Ty Smith. Riley Stillman (lower body) is out.