(10-10-26) Blue Jackets-Blues Gameday Lineup

ST. LOUIS – The injury bug continues to hit the St. Louis Blues.

Dillon Dube joins the list after the Blues (1-2-1) announced Saturday that the forward will be re-evaluated in eight weeks with a neck injury suffered in the first period of a 3-2 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.

Dube, whose goal was his first in the NHL since Nov. 16, 2023, joins Tyler Tucker (knee), Logan Mailloux (hand) and Alexey Toropchenko (upper body) on the injured list.

“It’s been tough,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said on Saturday. “We’ve had four injuries that are 4-6 weeks minimum. But it’s an opportunity for our depth now. We’ve talked about in our organization having really good depth. We have a lot of really good young players, we have a lot of good veteran players. People are going to get opportunities.”

That includes Zach Dean, who will play on the fourth line tonight against the Columbus Blue Jackets (6 p.m.; Blue Note +, ESPN 101.1-FM) with Pius Suter and Ross Johnston.

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The Blues enter their game against the Blue Jackets (2-1-0) finding it tough to score goals, but aside from their 6-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche and the empty-net goals against, they’ve kept their shot volume against at roughly 27 per game and allowed two goals or fewer in three of four games.

New assistant coach Greg Cronin has implemented a system that so far has worked nicely in the interim.

“We’re winning our net front battles, which didn’t happen last year,” Montgomery said. “’Crow’s the one that brought this D-zone coverage system in. I liked it immediately because it takes away the best forwards’ games in the game, the ability to carry the puck and roam the top of your zone. With that, it really solidifies your box-outs, who should get into who and when, and I think we’re seeing outside the Colorado game, really good results. (Thursday), our even-strength scoring chances were 13-6 for us. That’s us the way we score it as a staff, but a lot of times last year, it was 6-13, so in our process and the way we want to play, the D-zone coverage is doing a really good job.”

It is a different look, to say the least.

“Quite different, just because of how our person pursuing the puck in the corner and our winger on the strong side, they work together to try and get the puck out of the hands quicker. We give up probably more time up top to the defensemen, but we’re not allowing them to skate it up top to give it to the defensemen.

“So far so good. I imagine as the season progresses, we’re going to have to make some alterations to how we play certain situations because teams will oddly enough, San Jose was playing the same D-zone coverage (Thursday).”

Now if they can just get the offense going, which again, aside from empty-net goals, hasn’t found the back of the net more than two times.

“Offensively, we’re not seeing the same discipline in running our routes offensively to make sure that we have two on the inside all the time. Our net front guy is leaking to the corner, so when the puck gets up high to our defensemen, there’s no one in front of the goalie too often right now. It’s something we have to correct and something we continue to show and work on.”

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Defenseman Justin Barron will get into a second straight game Saturday, meaning Theo Lindstein will be a healthy scratch again.

Barron played 14:06 playing the majority of his shifts alongside Colton Parayko.

“Played well, we all thought he played well, looked confident out there, played well on the offside, so yeah, he’s going to get another opportunity,” Montgomery said. “… I thought he was really solid, really solid. For a guy playing his offside, first game in a new structure, not a lot of reps, not a lot of practice time, I thought he was really good.”

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Blues Projected Lineup:

Dylan Holloway-Robert Thomas-Jimmy Snuggerud

Connor McMichael-Mason McTavish-Jonatan Berggren

Jake Neighbours-Dalibor Dvorsky-Pavel Buchnevich

Ross Johnston-Pius Suter-Zach Dean

Philip Broberg-Adam Jiricek

Justin Barron-Colton Parayko

Cam Fowler-Brandon Carlo

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

The healthy scratch includes Theo Lindstein. Alexey Toropchenko (upper body), Tyler Tucker (knee), Logan Mailloux (hand) and Dillon Dube (neck) are out.

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Blue Jackets Projected Lineup:

Matthew Knies-Adam Fantilli-Kent Johnson

Valeri Nichushkin-Sean Monahan-Dmitri Voronkov

Cole Sillinger-Charlie Coyle-Mathieu Olivier

Ryan Lomberg-Danton Heinen-Conor Garland

Zach Werenski-Damon Severson

Carson Soucy-Denton Mateychuk

Emil Andrae-Erik Gudbranson

Jet Greaves will start in goal; Cam Talbot will be the backup.

Healthy scratches include Luca Del Bel Belluz and Jake Christiansen. Dante Fabbro (hand), Ivan Provorov (lower body) and Isac Lundestrom (lower body) are out.

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