Thomas returns after one-game absence; Holl to face former Leafs teammates with Kessel drawing out despite playing well
ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Blues will wrap up a three-game homestand on Saturday against a familiar face in Craig Berube and the Toronto Maple Leafs (6 p.m.) and welcome back Robert Thomas in the process.
Thomas, who missed Thursday’s 2-1 overtime win over the San Jose Sharks with an upper-body injury, will be back in his familiar role as the top-line center between Dylan Holloway and Jimmy Snuggerud.
“Thomas is doing good,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “I think he’s a player tonight, so goes back to the old lineup.”
That means Dalibor Dvorsky will drop back down to third-line center, Pius Suter goes back to the fourth line, and Nathan Walker comes out of the lineup. Also, Justin Holl, who spent the first six seasons of his NHL career with the Leafs, draws back in for Matthew Kessel, who played Thursday after sitting out the previous seven, but played the five previous games before that.
“Yes, I’ve liked his game because he’s been put in a tough situation,” Montgomery said of Kessel. “He’s not getting a lot of consecutive starts. When he goes in, it’s hard to go from practice mode to game mode, from practice speed to game speed. As much as you try and simulate game speed in practice, it’s hard to obtain, especially with infrequent practices. We’ve had more practices lately, but in general this year, not a lot of practicing.”
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The Blues have figured out plenty on the penalty kill since the return of the Olympic break; they’re No. 1 in the league at 87.2 percent, but the power play, well that’s another story.
They are just 2-for-26 in the 14 games going back to Feb. 26, and those goals were scored by Jonathan Drouin in Anaheim on March 8 and Jordan Kyrou’s goal against the Washington Capitals on Tuesday into an empty net.
“Just the puck movement and shrinking the offensive zone when we have full possession,” Montgomery said regarding what he is looking for. “The convergence at the net, it’s not translating to what we’re seeing in practice and what we’re seeing in the small amounts of power plays we have. It would be nice to get more power plays than one and a half, like we’ve been averaging since the Olympic break, and that’s on us to get to harder scoring areas 5-on-5. It’s just something that we don’t drive the net consistently off the rush, we don’t have two on the inside. Refs are going to call penalties on scoring chances. Most of our stuff, it seems like we’re begging for calls in the neutral zone on trips or hooks.”
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Montgomery spoke of game management Thursday and how the Blues, 9-1-2 their past 12 games, have really honed in on that part of it. But specifically, which part has really stood out?
“Yes, our patience,” Montgomery said. “The last game, for whatever reason, neither team was generating much. We stuck with defending until we could find a lead. We stuck with tracking and getting above pucks being on the right side of pucks so we could close the game out. There was a shift in the last minute where we were in our end for like 20 seconds. San Jose was just on the outside, we blocked two or three shots with our sticks or with our butt legs because we were right in front of them or taking away time and space really well. It’s not easy to win games 2-1 or the way we’ve been winning. Our goalies have been stellar, but our defensive attitude’s been stellar too.”
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Berube, a Stanley Cup-winning coach, comes back to St. Louis again, and will always be a fan favorite here.
The Maple Leafs (31-29-13) have won two straight and are winning in a variety of ways like the Blues (30-30-11) are.
“It’s always nice to come back and see friends and former players, staff members and stuff like that,” Berube said. “For me, it’s always fun to come back here.
“Keep building. Keep playing hard, keep competing hard, doing the right things out there. We want to keep it rolling here. Going back to that Boston game, how we approached that game, we’ve got to do the same thing here tonight, defend hard, not give up much and capitalize on our opportunities like we did. Goaltending’s been very strong, so we keep feeding off that.”
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Blues Projected Lineup:
Dylan Holloway-Robert Thomas-Jimmy Snuggerud
Jake Neighbours-Pavel Buchnevich-Jordan Kyrou
Otto Stenberg-Dalibor Dvorsky-Jonatan Berggren
Alexey Toropchenko-Jack Finley-Pius Suter
Philip Broberg-Logan Mailloux
Theo Lindstein-Colton Parayko
Cam Fowler-Justin Holl
Jordan Binnington will start in goal; Joel Hofer will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Jonathan Drouin, Oskar Sundqvist, Nathan Walker and Matthew Kessel. Tyler Tucker (lower body) is out.
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Maple Leafs Projected Lineup:
Easton Cowan-John Tavares-William Nylander
Matthew Knies-Max Domi-Nicholas Robertson
Dakota Joshua-Steven Lorentz-Matias Maccelli
Michael Pezzetta-Jacob Quillan-Calle Jarnkrok
Morgan Rielly-Brandon Carlo
Jake McCabe-Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Simon Benoit-Troy Stecher
Joseph Woll will start in goal; Anthony Stolarz will be the backup.
The healthy scratch includes Philippe Myers. Auston Matthews (MCL) and Chris Tanev (groin) are out.
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