Broberg, Holloway, Faksa, Dvorsky all to debut for Blues in Des Moines, Iowa
MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- The St. Louis Blues are back at it in preseason action, this time in Des Moines, Iowa to face the Utah Hockey Club in their first-ever game since relocating from Arizona this past offseason.
Face-off will be at 6 p.m. today and fans in the St. Louis viewing area can watch the game live at stlouisblues.com and on the Blues App and the game can be heard on ESPN 101.1-FM.
The Blues, who fell to the Dallas Stars 2-1 on Saturday to open the preseason, will showcase forwards Radek Faksa, Dylan Holloway and Dalibor Dvorsky, along with defenseman Philip Broberg for the first time.
Faksa was acquired from the Stars on July 2 for future considerations, and Holloway and Broberg each were acquired as free agents when the Edmonton Oilers did not match the offer sheets the Blues submitted to the pair on Aug. 13.
Broberg will be paired with Colton Parayko tonight, while Holloway will skate on a line with Faksa and Dylan Peterson.
"I think it's good to get them in a game here," Blues coach Drew Bannister said. "Obviously the first three are on the road, we want to try and get a few veterans in each lineup and an opportunity to play. Excited to see those two guys play."
As for Dvorsky, the No. 10 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, he will make his long-anticipated debut.
Dvorsky will center a line with Brayden Schenn and Mathias Laferriere.
"You have two and a half practices where you're kind of working on structure, but I think the biggest thing is for them not to think too much and just go out and play," Bannister said. "He's going to get a lot of opportunity, whether it's on the power play so we want to see him utilize his skill and work to his attributes."
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As for Saturday, there was some good and some not so good, according to Bannister, who was pleased with parts of the game but not all of it.
"When you look at the game overall, I thought we were very competitive," Bannister said. "The effort was there. Some of the details in our game kind of held us back from getting more momentum, more pressure. Little things we've got to clean up, but our young guys competed there, I thought our veteran guys led the way. We were able to chip in one late to kind of get ourselves back in the game. We had a late penalty kind of takes away from our momentum.
"We had some good opportunities early on. I thought we came out the first five minutes and played well. We took a penalty and they kind of got some momentum back and second period, I kind of felt like we were on our heels a little bit, self-inflicted with some of the minors that we took. When you're killing six minors in the game kind of takes some of the guys away. Overall in the first and I thought in the third our push was good, but our second we've got to clean up."
Kasperi Kapanen scored the lone Blues goal late in the third period with some excellent forechecking and puck-hounding work with linemates Zach Dean and Mathieu Joseph, who made his Blues debut after being acquired from the Ottawa Senators on July 2 for future considerations.
"If you look at the details of what happened there, whether it was the start of the face-off, guys were jumping on their toes, the stick details were really good to break up plays, we felt at times wasn't great," Bannister said. "We had guys on the forecheck that were working hard to get there, arriving on time and their sticks were off the ice and it's easy for a team to break out. That line in particular had a couple real good shifts where they broke up plays and had some quality scoring chances."
The goaltending of Jordan Binnington (10 saves) in the first period and Colten Ellis (14 saves on 16 shots) was good.
"I thought [Ellis] played well and I thought 'Binner' had a good start in the first period and I thought he came out and played well," Bannister said. "That's difficult circumstances when you come in and you're a little bit cold. It is what it is. Overall I thought his game was really solid."
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One quick note from Saturday included forward Pavel Buchnevich blocking a shot on the third period that forced him to sit out Sunday's practice session. The Blues will be off on Monday, so Buchnevich will get two days of rest.
"He had no issue finishing the game," Bannister said.
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Blues projected lineup:
Brayden Schenn-Dalibor Dvorsky-Mathias Laferriere
Dylan Holloway-Radek Faksa-Dylan Peterson
Aleksanteri Kaskimaki-Tanner Dickinson-Simon Robertsson
Juraj Pekarcik-Tomas Mrsic-Adam Jecho
Philip Broberg-Colton Parayko
Michael Buchinger-Scott Perunovich
Lukas Fischer-Anton Malmstrom
Joel Hofer is projected to start in goal and expected to play the first period; Vadim Zherenko will back up and is projected to play the final two periods.
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Utah Hockey Club roster:
Forwards -- Dylan Guenther, Milos Keleman, Jack McBain, Cole Beaudoin, Owen Allard, Julian Lutz, Noel Nordh, Michael Carcone, Kailer Yamamoto, Ben McCartney, Austin Poganski, Logan Cooley.
Defensemen -- Michael Kesselring, Robert Bortuzzo, Kevin Connauton, Veeti Vaisenen, Valdislav Kolyachonok, Tomas Lavoie.
Goalies -- Karel Vejmelka, Jaxson Stauber.
