(10-22-26) Golden Knights-Blues Gameday Lineup

ST. LOUIS – The challenges will continue to get stiffer for the St. Louis Blues (4-4-1) when they play the second of a five-game homestand Thursday by hosting the Vegas Golden Knights (8-3-0) at 7 p.m. and can be seen on First Alert ABC 32-1 over the air television for the first time this season along with (Blue Note+, ESPN 101.10FM).

It’s the first of consecutive visits over the next two games when the Blues, coming off a 2-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday, host the past two Stanley Cup finalists at Enterprise Center.

Vegas lost to the Carolina Hurricanes, who come to town Saturday, in six games last season.

“This stretch, the five games at home, is really good hockey teams in the NHL that are all doing well already,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We’re just focused on tonight and we’re really focused on ourselves. We want to be a consistent team that knows who we are and we want to get to that, and we’ve been talking about it a lot. We know Vegas is good, we know what they do really well, but we have to play our brand of game to be able to have a chance against a really good hockey team.”

The Blues will not make any lineup changes from Tuesday, meaning that Zach Dean and Theo Lindstein will be tonight’s healthy scratches, and Joel Hofer, who is coming off a 32-save performance Tuesday, will start for the seventh time in 10 games this season.

Hofer is 3-2-1 on the season with a 2.19 goals-against average and .919 save percentage, and there’s an opportunity for the Blues to ride the 25-year-old for a stretch of games, or is there?

“I understand the question, but Jordan Binnington’s a huge part of our team,” Montgomery said, “and we think our tandem is what makes us special as a team. It’s a huge advantage, we think, against the rest of the league. It’s going to be the two of them working together. Joel’s going to play more games, but at what level, it just depends on how the season progresses.”

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It was another day on the ice for forward Alexey Toropchenko, who continues to rehab from an upper-body injury suffered Oct. 2 in a 4-0 win against the Dallas Stars.

Toropchenko began skating with the team on Monday and has been on the ice each day since, including an optional morning skate on Thursday.

“Good,” Montgomery said on the progress. “Took a little bit of bumping yesterday, take some more bumping tomorrow and he might be close.”

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Blues Projected Lineup:

Dylan Holloway-Robert Thomas-Jimmy Snuggerud

Connor McMichael-Mason McTavish-Jonatan Berggren

Jake Neighbours-Dalibor Dvorsky-Pavel Buchnevich

Aleksanteri Kaskimaki-Pius Suter-Otto Stenberg

Philip Broberg-Justin Barron

Adam Jiricek-Colton Parayko

Cam Fowler-Brandon Carlo

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

Healthy scratches include Theo Lindstein and Zach Dean. Logan Mailloux (hand), Tyler Tucker (knee), Alexey Toropchenko (upper body), Dillon Dube (neck) and Ross Johnston (lower body) are out.

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Golden Knights Projected Lineup:

Ivan Barbashev-Jack Eichel-Mark Stone

Brett Howden-William Karlsson-Mitch Marner

Trevor Connelly-Tomas Hertl-Raphael Lavoie

Marc Gatcomb-Nic Dowd-Braeden Bowman

Shea Theodore-Brayden McNabb

Jeremy Lauzon-Rasmus Andersson

Dylan Coghlan-Noah Hanifin

Adin Hill will start in goal; Carter Hart will be the backup.

Healthy scratches include Ville Heinola and Alexander Holtz. Victor Olofsson (lower body) and Parker Wotherspoon (upper body) are out.

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