ST. LOUIS -- The good news for the St. Louis Blues [http://thn.com/stlouis] is that the injury news on forward Jordan Kyrou, who has a lower-body injury, with MRI results coming back what the Blues thought they would be, according to coach Jim Montgomery. So in moving forward now without four forwards, the Blues (11-12-7), who host the Boston Bruins [http://thn.com/boston] (17-13-0) in a rematch from Thursday’s 5-2 Boston win, on Tuesday at 7 p.m. (FDSNMW, ESPN 101.1-FM) and winners of two straight, if everyone pulls a little more on the rope, it will help offset the current losses. “That’s what needs to happen,” Blues forward Dylan Holloway said. “Everybody needs to step up and kind of take on a bigger role. It’s definitely difficult when guys are out, especially key pieces on our team. But it’s kind of a testament to our culture and to our identity, bend but don’t break. Deal with adversity but we’re so tight as a team if we can get through it. That’s the belief right now. Guys definitely need to step up.” The Blues are coming in looking for their first three-game win streak of the season, something that was elusive for a large portion of last season until they got it cranked up after the 4 Nations Face-Off. The team is coming off wins against the Ottawa Senators [http://thn.com/ottawa] (2-1 [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/observations-from-blues-2-1-win-vs-senators]) on Saturday and Montreal Canadiens [http://thn.com/montreal] (4-3 [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/observations-from-blues-4-3-win-vs-canadiens]) on Sunday. “I liked the intensity of our team, just the way we stuck together,” Montgomery said. “Penalty kill’s been excellent, goaltending’s been excellent and our sacrifice for each other’s been excellent. With that, we haven’t generated a lot of offense, but the offense we’ve generated have been Grade A chances and we’re capitalizing on those opportunities right now.” Things are coming together in segments for the team, particularly in the past 10 games or so. The Blues have earned a point in 14 of the past 20 games. “I think our players play with more intensity,” Montgomery said. “I think our reads have been quicker, we’re spending more time in the D-zone. All those things coupled together, and the best part of our D-zone coverage has been our box-outs have been significantly improved.” “We got two big wins. That was huge,” Holloway said. ‘Obviously when we played Boston, we didn’t like our effort, we didn’t like our game overall. We have a chance to redeem ourselves tonight. Those two wins this weekend are huge and we’ve just got to keep building on that and continue to get those ‘W’s. … I think we’ve got the momentum on our side right now. We kind of know the recipe a little bit, what it takes to win.” - - - The Blues had to be happy with the production they got from Holloway, Brayden Schenn and Mathieu Joseph in Montreal when they combined for seven points and really helped carry an offense that had been stagnant for 10 of the past 11 games, scoring two goals or fewer until Sunday. “All three of us, we complement each other in different ways,” said Holloway, who had a goal and two assists. “I think we bring a lot of speed and some physicality too. As long as we’re talking and kind of getting in the right spots and supporting each other, I think we’ve got a lot of good (chemistry). “(Joseph) brings a lot of energy, a lot of speed. You know what you’re getting out of him every shift. It’s nice to know that you’ve got a guy in there that wants to be in the battle. We had a lot of good (chemistry) with ‘Rouzy’ last year, obviously hoping for a speedy recovery for him, but it’s been fun playing with ‘Matty Jo’ too.” Aside from Schenn’s power-play goal that helped the captain collect two goals and an assist in the game, Montgomery said the 5-on-5 execution by the line was worth noting. “How they were on the right side of pucks, their reloads were phenomenal, which led to their two goals 5-on-5 and just how connected they were,” he said. “Coming out of (the) D-zone, through the neutral zone. They had a lot of forechecks, they had a lot of neutral zone regroups and obviously they had the good rush goals.” - - - The Blues’ loss at Boston last Thursday was one of their poorer efforts of the season, something Montgomery said has to change. “We have to play much faster and we have to be much more connected,” he said. “Boston did a much better job than we did at that and it looked like the game was easy for them, looked like it was really trying for us.” - - - Blues Projected Lines: Jake Neighbours-Robert Thomas-Pavel Buchnevich Dylan Holloway-Brayden Schenn-Mathieu Joseph Pius Suter-Dalibor Dvorsky-Nick Bjugstad Aleksanteri Kaskimaki-Oskar Sundqvist-Matt Luff Philip Broberg-Colton Parayko Tyler Tucker-Justin Faulk Cam Fowler-Logan Mailloux Joel Hofer will start in goal; Jordan Binnington will be the backup. Healthy scratches include Hugh McGing and Matthew Kessel. Jordan Kyrou (lower body), Jimmy Snuggerud (wrist), Alexey Toropchenko (leg burns) and Nathan Walker (upper body). - - - Bruins Projected Lines: Alex Steeves-Elias Lindholm-Morgan Geekie Casey Mittelstadt-Pavel Zacha-Viktor Arvidsson Tanner Jeannot-Fraser Minten-Mark Kastelic Marat Khusnutdinov-Sean Kuraly-Michael Eyssimont Hampus Lindholm-Andrew Peeke Nikita Zadorov-Jonathan Aspirot Mason Lohrei-Victor Soderstrom Jeremy Swayman will start in goal; Joonas Korpisalo will be the backup. The healthy scratch is Jeffrey Veil. Charlie McAvoy (upper body), Jordan Harris (ankle), Matej Blumel (lower body), Henri Jokiharju (undisclosed) and Michael Callahan (lower body) are all out. David Pastrnak (undisclosed) will be a game time decision. Blues Avoid Major Injury Scare With Top Forward [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/7f868b95-8539-477e-813d-a6f809b194d2.jpeg] Blues Avoid Major Injury Scare With Top Forward Jordan Kyrou considered week-to-week, but coach Jim Montgomery said MRI results were what they thought; forward will miss at least week with lower-body injury [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/blues-avoid-major-injury-scare-with-top-forward] Blues Recall Veteran AHL Winger [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/9c2f02d1-087e-457d-a390-f4f2c0b6b7bb.jpeg] Blues Recall Veteran AHL Winger The St. Louis Blues have recalled Hugh McGing from the AHL following the injury news of Jordan Kyrou. [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/latest-news/blues-recall-veteran-ahl-winger] Image [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/17982935-0e17-45f8-9d12-9c609825f059.jpeg] For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.store/products/print-subscription]. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here [http://eepurl.com/i7OC4I]. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.
