In the seemingly never-ending carousel for coaches in the search for consistency, St. Louis Blues interim coach Drew Bannister has shuffled his lines again ahead of the first of back-to-back matchups, beginning Thursday at 6 p.m. (BSMW, ESPN 101.1-FM) against the Washington Capitals (21-15-6).
Jordan Kyrou is off the top line and Jake Neighbours is on it again, Brayden Schenn and Kevin Hayes are back together, Adam Gaudette will make his season debut after the American Hockey League's leading goal scorer (24) was recalled on Wednesday in light of Kasperi Kapanen (lower-body injury) going on injured reserve, and Sammy Blais will come out of the lineup for the Blues (21-19-2).
"With 'Kapi' going out, we were probably going to make some changes (and) we liked where 'Kapi' is, but when we got the news yesterday, we thought today we'd try and look at some different options going into the game and again we can always make changes while we're there. We'll see if we can find some chemistry, and with 'Niki' [Nikita Alexandrov] back too, it gives us an extra center."
A line with Robert Thomas and Pavel Bucnhevich gives the Blues a bonafide top line, but it's been an ongoing process of finding secondary scoring.
So Kyrou, who has been a regular with Thomas and Buchnevich until Bannister pulled him off it on Monday against the Philadelphia Flyers, will try and help fuel a line with Schenn and Hayes, who will alternate who's in the middle and who's on the wing.
"We kind of just played whoever was good in the dot (in the past), whoever was kind of feeling it and whoever was playing down low," Schenn said. "We're both capable of playing both. This is a chance for us to get back. I thought we played well together games ago and then add 'Rouzy.' The three of us can make some plays and work together."
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Bannister also tried putting the band back together the past couple games, but he's, at least at the outset, going to run back something that worked on the blue line as well.
The Blues are splitting up Torey Krug and Justin Faulk and putting Krug back with Matthew Kessel.
When Faulk sustained a lower-body injury Dec. 29 against the Colorado Avalanche, the Krug-Kessel pairing was solid for five games.
Krug had three assists and was a minus-1, while Kessel was even, but in the two games since, Krug has no points and was a minus-6.
"They played well together while they were there," Bannister said. "Obviously we started there and we kind of went back to Faulk and Krug and we just felt as a team, it's probably best right now to go back to that pairing and have them play together and have Faulker and 'Perun' play together."
Faulk will be paired with Scott Perunovich, making veteran Marco Scandella a healthy scratch for the third game in a row.
"They're both moving pucks and 'Faulker,' he defends really well," Bannister said. "He uses his body really well. For 'Perun,' that's certainly not his strong point. He's got to defend with his feet, he's got to defend with his stick, make sure he's on the right side. He's going to help out on our retrievals to get pucks back, but they both transport pucks really well and that's something that we're looking for our defense to move pucks to our forwards as quickly as we can to transition so we can get to the offensive zone quick and they do that well."
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Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin, who is chasing Wayne Gretzky's all-time record for goals, is a game-time decision tonight.
Ovechkin, who has 830 goals and is 64 away from tying Gretzky and 65 away from breaking the record, has missed the past three games with a lower-body injury.
Now it's up to the Blues, at least for the next two games, to potentially keep 'Ovi' off the goal-scoring sheet.
Ovechkin has killed the Blues in his career with 35 points, including 19 goals, in 24 career games.
"Try your best, right," Schenn said. "Obviously one of the all-time greats, lethal shot. It's funny, it's Game (43). Other than the highlights, you don't really see their team a whole lot. It's an opportunity. It's one of those challenges where you look forward to playing one of the legends in the game and obviously towards the end of his career, but he still has a lot left in the tank. He's going to play hard and he's obviously going to do everything he can to score goals. You try and stop him."
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The Blues, with 44 points, have seven games remaining before they hit the All-Star break, with 10 days off between games and a chance to see where they put themselves when February rolls around.
After the two games against the Capitals, including the rematch Saturday at Enterprise Center, the Blues then embark on a three-game trip in four days to Calgary, Vancouver and Seattle, then come home to close out the pre-break slate against Los Angeles and Columbus.
"I think we've got to maximize what we have in front of us as far as winning hockey games," Bannister said. "Going into the break, we have seven games. We have to be able to maximize those seven games, three at home and four on the road. This is an important stretch for us to make sure going into the break, we're feeling good about ourselves and our game. When we come out of the break, we want to be playing good hockey."
One of the areas Bannister stressed is, "we have to become a better forechecking team. That's kind of our focus right now in our team game is becoming a better forechecking team that will hopefully create more offense for us and playing in the offensive zone lessens the time you have to defend."
Bannister offered up an interesting thought when asked why the forecheck has been so inconsistent.
"I think in general for a lot of teams and analytics, the rush game has been something that people really have pushed on, possession," he said. "I think we're No. 1 in the league in chances for off the rush. But if you look at the top teams, a lot of them aren't good rush teams, they're good forechecking teams and that leads to offense for them, that leads to them playing below the tops of the circles and in turn, that makes them a better defensive team because they're playing less time in their zone and they're able to three-quarter ice teams and get back up on the forecheck. It's more predictable, and I think we have to have a happy medium here where we become a better forechecking team. It might mean that we have to give up some offense on the controlled entries, which we're going to be fine with if it helps us win games."
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The Blues' projected lineup:
Pavel Buchnevich-Robert Thomas-Jake Neighbours
Kevin Hayes-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou
Brandon Saad-Oskar Sundqvist-Adam Gaudette
Nathan Walker-Nikita Alexandrov-Alexey Toropchenko
Nick Leddy-Colton Parayko
Torey Krug-Matthew Kessel
Scott Perunovich-Justin Faulk
Jordan Binnington will start in goal; Joel Hofer will be the backup.
The healthy scratches include Marco Scandella and Sammy Blais. Kasperi Kapanen (lower body) is out.
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The Capitals' projected lineup:
Alex Ovechkin-Evgeny Kuznetsov-Anthony Mantha
Max Pacioretty-Dylan Strome-T.J. Oshie
Aliaksei Protas-Connor McMichael-Tom Wilson
Beck Malenstyn-Nic Dowd-Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Martin Fehervary-John Carlson
Joel Edmundson-Ethan Bear
Alexander Alexeyev-Nick Jensen
Charlie Lindgren will start in goal; Darcy Kuemper will be the backup.
Healthy scratches could include Hendrix Lapierre, Matthew Phillips and Trevor van Riemsdyk. Sonny Milano (upper body) and Rasmus Sandin (upper body) are out. Ovechkin is a game-time decision; Malenstyn is questionable (personal) and former Blue Edmundson (undisclosed injury) is also questionable.
