Opener for both St. Louis and Dallas; each side looking at prospects for 6 p.m. puck drop; Dagenais to make Blues debut before returning to junior hockey
MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- It’s go time for the NHL preseason on Saturday, and the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars will kick things off after opening respective training camps just two days ago.
The Blues and Stars will open preseason play at 6 p.m. at Enterprise Center, and from a Blues perspective, there’s no time to get extended looks at potential players looking to crack the opening night lineup or prospects getting a lot of time with the big club.
But the Blues will do so on Saturday before getting more time in with those that will make the club.
Headlining the lineup tonight includes what is projected to be the opening night fourth line of Ross Johnston, Pius Suter and Alexey Toropchenko.
“(Tonight), it will probably be the least amount of veterans dressed,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We’ll get a look at some of our young prospects. Then game two (Monday in Dallas), we’re going to have our first power play unit go, then game three (Thursday at home against the Chicago Blackhawks), we’re going to have our second power play unit go and the last game’s going to be both units going (Sept. 26 at Chicago). That’s going to be our team playing in the last game.”
There’s a good sense of what the lineup will look like Oct. 2 in Dallas when the Blues and Stars open for keeps, but what’s going to be a battle is the spots for the 13/14 roster spots among the forwards, and it includes Oskar Sundqvist, Nathan Walker, Dillon Dube, Otto Stenberg and Jack Finley all vying for two spots.
“I think it’s always different with what do you have up front,” Montgomery said. “Do you have enough offense where you’re just going to look for checkers and grinders? Or are you lacking offense where maybe you bring in a guy that’s had some skill to go up in the second line and you have one guy that’s going to be a grinder. It’s not your typical guys you’re just looking for that are going to be just physical guys and other attributes would be can they play center and can they play wing? Can they win draws? Do they penalty kill or do they power play? It all depends on the makeup of your team and I just love the fact that we’ve got a lot of different elements that we can choose from right now. It’s very competitive.
“You don’t want two guys that look the same. That you don’t want unless you had a team that your four lines are set and you have a fourth line that is an identity line like we had two years ago and then you have a third line that’s a pure checking line that’s a hard 200-foot line and then you have two scoring lines and then you’re just looking for certain things, but we need versatility right now because as we look through our lineup, we think we have a first line, we think we have a fourth line. The second and third line, they have to find an identity and that’s [because] we have new bodies, we have new people, we have other opportunities too with players that have been coming in.
“I think everybody that has an opportunity to earn those spots have shown really well. Whether it’s ‘Walks’ or ‘Sunny,’ Dube had an excellent day [Friday]. (Dylan) Peterson I thought was excellent [Friday]. (Aleksanteri) Kaskimaki’s been really good and Stenberg I thought had a really good day [Friday] after an average day yesterday.”
It makes the limited time on ice and practice sessions so important for all these players.
“I think with such a short camp, every practice means a lot,” Montgomery said. “We don’t have a lot of time to make decisions so they don’t have a lot of time to impress. It’s either you’re coming here to fight for a job and grab a job, or you’re watching your job disappear. If you’re not playing with any kind of intensity and any kind of purpose out there, you’re going to be left behind.”
- - -
Maddox Dagenais, the No. 16 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, will make his Blues debut and more than likely, get sent back to juniors where he will play a third and likely final season with the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
“Pretty excited,” Dagenais said. “Since I was a little kid, I’ve been watching those games. You’re going on the ice on an NHL rink, so it’s pretty nice. I’m just going to give it my all.”
Dagenais's father, former NHLer Pierre Dagenais, was supposed to come in to St. Louis for the game to see his son play but his flight was canceled.
Montgomery really likes what the 6-foot-4, 186-pound can bring and feels there’s some unique traits there.
“Real intelligent player,” Montgomery said. “You can tell that he’s a gifted offensive player because he always knows what he’s going to do with the puck before he gets it. Incredible release and he’s really deceptive because he’s a little bit of a 10-to-2 skater on a clock and his feet are going that way and that makes it hard because the angles are completely different and he’s going to be very deceptive, I think.
“It’s not unique, no, but Ulf Dahlen was the most famous one for it, but it makes him slippery.”
Will have more from Dagenais in a separate story.
- - -
Blues Projected Lineup:
Alexey Toropchenko-Pius Suter-Ross Johnston
Aleksanteri Kaskimaki-Zach Dean-Justin Carbonneau
Maddox Dagenais-Jack Finley-Otto Stenberg
Juraj Pekarcik-Jakub Stancl-Dylan Peterson
Arseny Koromyslov-Tyler Tucker
Colin Ralph-Theo Lindstein
Quinton Burns-Lukas Fischer
Jordan Binnington will start in goal and play the first two periods; Georgii Romanov will back up and play the final period.
- - -
Stars Projected Lineup:
Matthew Seminoff-Arttu Hyry-Cameron Hughes
Dylan Hrychowian-Artem Shlanie-Emil Hemming
Curtis McKenzie-Jack Becker-Justin Ertel
Michael Sgarbossa-Christian Fitzgerald-Charlie Paquette
Jack Anderson-Kyle Capobianco
Trey Taylor-Kyle Burroughs
Jakub Vanecek-Ben Gleason
Remi Poirer is projected to start in goal; Brandon Halverson would be the backup.
For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.
