(10-15-23) BLUES NOTEBOOK

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- The St. Louis Blues may have caught a break.

Literally.

More will be determined, perhaps as early as Sunday afternoon/evening, but what projected as an injury scare to forward Pavel Buchnevich, who departed late in the first period with an upper-body injury following a cross check to the back into the back offensive zone boards by Seattle Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak with 3:13 remaining in the period, may not be a serious injury after all.

Buchnevich did not practice Sunday morning.

"I'll know more later today," Blues coach Craig Berube said practice at Centene Community Ice Center. "He'll get looked at later today. He feels not bad. That's a good sign today the way he feels. Hopefully I'm optimistic with the way it turns out.

"I'm hoping. We'll see. I won't know more until later today."

Buchnevich seemed to be favoring his arm/shoulder as he departed the ice, sat on the bench for a bit and left before the team announced he would miss the remainder of the game with an upper-body injury.

Brandon Saad stepped up in his place with Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas.

If Buchnevich has to miss time, Nikita Alexandrov would slot into the lineup. The Blues (1-0-1), who downed the Kraken 2-1 in a shootout after falling in Dallas against the Stars Thursday in a shootout by the same 2-1 score, don't play again until they host the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday.

"He's played the last two exhibition games; he played well," Berube said of Alexandrov, a 2019 second-round pick. "I thought he played well his game, what we need from him. He's got to continue to do that, the battle, the competitiveness and be highly competitive, provide energy for our team. He's a smart player positionally-wise. It's the little things that's going to determine how he does more than anything."

* Schenn absent from practice -- Captain Brayden Schenn also was absent from Sunday morning practice with what Berube called a maintenance day.

Schenn was noticeably absent from the face-off circle in Saturday's win, winning four of his seven draws. Linemate Kasperi Kapanen took face-offs from the right circle.

"He's got just a little nagging thing on the face-off side of things," Berube said of Schenn. "Not on his strong side, his other side, we asked Kapanen to take those draws for him. Just a maintenance day here for him."

Kapanen won only one of four draws Saturday.

"Not bad. He played some center last year," Berube said when asked about being comfortable with Kapanen taking draws. "We're going to continue to work with him and 'Buchy' at face-offs to have two guys that can take draws, which is nice, especially on their strong side. We've just got to keep hammering away at face-offs with him."

* Sundqvist blanked again from the dot -- Center Oskar Sundqvist was blanked again from the face-off circle.

The 29-year-old veteran, who has played well to begin the season, was 0-for-7 on his face-offs Saturday. He had a preseason game against the Stars on Oct. 7 when he was 0-for-10.

"He's in and out. He does well for a bit, then it kind of goes south a little bit," Berube said. "It's just something we've got to keep working on with these guys so we become a stronger face-off team.

"You've got to be competitive in there. You're going to have to obviously win them by being competitive (and) knowing what the other guy is all about. There's film on these guys. We have film before games on what their draw guys do and what they like to do. It's just studying that a little bit and understanding what they're trying to do."

* Hayes off to a strong start -- Newcomer Kevin Hayes, who hasn't registered a point in two games yet, has played well and is one of the few Blues doing well in the dot.

Hayes, who won 60 percent of his face-offs in Dallas, won another eight of 11 draws against the Kraken.

"He had a great night in the circle last night, which is nice," Berube said. "I thought he had a good game overall, strong on pucks."

* Focus on hitting more targets -- The Blues finished the game Saturday with 18 missed shots, which Berube said, "That's way too many."

The Blues, who have scored just two goals in two games but have allowed just two and have not led in a game at any point in 130 minutes of hockey, simply need to focus more on putting pucks in target.

"I think it's a combination of you've got to bear down," Berube said. "You've got to bear down more when you get those opportunities. We can bear down more and secondly, there's a lot of missed nets that went off people. I think they counted those. They actually had some nice blocks and things that went off guys. Those are a little different, but there were some opportunities where you've got to bear down and you've got to hit the net, especially on our Grade A's. We had a few of them in the first period and we didn't hit the net on them."

* Burns makes appearance -- Defenseman Quinton Burns, a third-round pick in 2023, was on the ice Sunday morning at the conclusion of the NHL team practice working through his lower-body injury he sustained during training camp.

When the 18-year-old, who was visiting team doctors here, can get back to health, he will return to the Ontario Hockey League for his third season with the Kingston Frontenacs.

"Still rehabbing. Almost getting ready to get back to junior," Berube said.