(10-6-26) Blues-Blackhawks Gameday Lineup

CHICAGO – Lengthy injuries are already piling up for the St. Louis Blues, with Alexey Toropchenko being the latest to miss at least six weeks along with Tyler Tucker (knee) and Logan Mailloux (hand) with an upper-body injury of his own that will see the club re-evaluate the forward then.

It appears first in line to crack the lineup on a more regular basis will be Dillon Dube, who made his Blues debut on Saturday in a 6-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche, when the Blues (1-1-0) end a three-game road trip to face the rival Chicago Blackhawks (0-3-0) in Chicago's home-opener at United Center (7 p.m.; Blue Note+, ESPN 101.1-FM).

Toropchenko was injured in the first period of last Friday’s 4-0 season-opening win over the Dallas Stars, and Dube was skating on that fourth line that now features Pius Suter, Ross Johnston and also Zach Dean.

“It’s tough. Obviously sitting up and watching that, you can kind of tell right away,” Dube said of Toropchenko’s injury. “You hate to see that. He’s in good spirits though. He’s obviously big in this locker room. It’s tough to see that early on in the year, but everyone as a core and all the forwards have got to step up when you lose a key piece like that. For myself, for guys competing, you’ve got to step up and try and fill that role, but it’s not easy. I think the hardest part with injuries is not having a teammate on the road. We’re going (Monday) and he’s back at home. Even with the other guys injured here, we’re not together. We’ve go to step up and be better for him.

“I definitely don’t have the size like that guy, but he’s a game changer. He can go out and run somebody. I’ve obviously got to use my legs and play simple and trey and play fast. It’s never easy losing a guy, but for me, I’ve got to try and step up here and help the team out any way I can, so that’s my goal. I’ve got to play that simplistic, high-speed kind of game and just be hard on pucks.”

Toropchenko is 6-foot-6, 227 pounds; Dube is 5-11, 185. Size-wise, so much difference but for Blues coach Jim Montgomery, that’s where it ends.

“They are different, but they’re both energy players,” Montgomery said. “I think Dube is someone our fans love over time because he plays an agitating, in-your-face style of game. He might be smaller, but he’s going to do the same things. He’s going to hunt, he’s going to hound, he’s going to reload, he’s going to create turnovers, and that’s what ‘Torpo’s going when he’s doing at his best.

“Dube probably has more ability to make plays once those turnovers happen. We hope to see that.”

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The Blues, who did not hold a morning skate this morning, will get a second home opener with Chicago having also started their season on a three-game trip but outscored 15-5.

And in doing so, they will – at least to start the game – keep their top two horses on defense (Philip Broberg and Colton Parayko) on the same pairing while putting the other two veterans (Cam Fowler and Brandon Carlo) with the two youngsters (Adam Jiricek and Theo Lindstein).

Blues fans were up in arms about why the Blues’ coach would switch up the pairings after Friday’s successful debut and in light of Saturday’s debacle in Denver,

“Any time you get to match up your trump against their trump, that’s the best opportunity to have success,” Montgomery said in pitting Broberg and Parayko against Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas. “It didn’t occur. It didn’t occur throughout our lineup.

“Saturday night, if we learn and grow from it, it could be the best experience we could ever have in an opening couple games of the season, because it was man, we played the right way, and then we went on the road, we’re tired, we get in at 2:30 … there’s all kinds of excuses you could use, but the reality is you’ve got to play a smarter game; we have to, and we didn’t. And we talked about it and we talked about the ways and the certain situations, that you can’t turn over the puck, you can’t give up odd-man rushes. When you’re going to play against one of the top teams on the road in altitude, but this is an opportunity for us to learn. We can’t be that easy to play against when we’re tired.”

The focus now should be to try and keep the Blackhawks down while finishing their trip taking two of three, which would be a good trip for the Blues.

“Just because we played a bad game Saturday doesn’t mean the mood should be bad at practice (Monday),” Montgomery said. “We’re 1-1, tough road trip, come back, now we’ve got to go on the road (again) and we have a chance to go above .500 in the first three games on the road. That’s where our mindset goes to once we learn from what we just did wrong. … We don’t want to make the same mistakes (from) Colorado in Chicago.”

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Blues defenseman Colton Parayko will play in his 803rd NHL game tonight, all with the Blues, and will tie Barret Jackman for second in franchise history.

When Parayko breaks the record on Thursday, he will only trail Bernie Federko (927) for tops in Blues history.

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Blues Projected Lineup:

Dylan Holloway-Robert Thomas-Jimmy Snuggerud

Pavel Buchnevich-Mason McTavish-Connor McMichael

Jake Neighbours-Dalibor Dvorsky-Jonatan Berggren

Ross Johnston-Pius Suter-Dillon Dube

Philip Broberg-Colton Parayko

Cam Fowler-Adam Jiricek

Theo Lindstein-Brandon Carlo

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

Healthy scratches could include Zach Dean and Justin Barron. Alexey Toropchenko (upper body), Tyler Tucker (knee) and Logan Mailloux (hand) are out.

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Blackhawks Projected Lineup:

Roman Kantserov-Frank Nazar-Patrick Kane

Tyler Bertuzzi-Anton Frondell-Teuvo Teravainen

Ryan Donato-Oliver Moore-Nick Lardis

Cole Smith-Ryan Greene-Jordan Greenway

Bowen Byram-Artyom Levshunov

Alex Vlasic-Ian Cole

Wyatt Kaiser-Sam Rinzel

Spencer Knight will start in goal; Arvid Soderblom will be the backup.

Healthy scratches include Kevin Korchinski and Ethan Del Mastro. Connor Bedard (shoulder) and Andrew Mangiapane (lower body) are out.

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