St. Louis Blues Look to Take Down Struggling Montreal Canadiens on Goalies Heritage Night
The St. Louis Blues will host a Montreal Canadiens team that has not been the same since they lost goalie Carey Price.
The St. Louis Blues host the Montreal Canadiens at Scottrade Center on Saturday night, looking to wash the taste of Thursday’s embarrassing 4-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes out of their mouths. The loss to Carolina, a team that’s tied for fourth place in the Metropolitan Division, dropped the Blues’ record against the Eastern Conference to 7-8-5 this year.
The Blues will look to put up a much better performance on Goalies Heritage Night, an event that will honor all of the goaltenders throughout the franchise’s history as Blues legends Grant Fuhr, Curtis Joseph, and Mike Liut return to town in the team’s third-to-last Saturday home game this season. Fuhr, Joseph, and Liut, as well as assistant GM Martin Brodeur–who had a brief but memorable cameo for the Blues last year–and current goalies Brian Elliott, Jake Allen, and Jordan Binnington attended a special dinner with fans at the Missouri Athletic Club on Friday night in advance of the game.
The Canadiens, who started off with an unbelievable 9-0 record, just have not been the same since they lost their best player, goalie Carey Price, on November 25 with a knee injury. Combining the three weeks that Price missed with a more minor variation of the same injury earlier in the season, the Habs have been 10-2 with Price in net, and 13-16-3 without him. They’re 3-7 in their last 10 and have lost two straight, so they’re the ideal opponent for a severely depleted Blues team.
The Blues are still expected to be in an injury bind on Saturday; they could get defenseman Carl Gunnarsson back, but defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, forward Magnus Paajarvi, and goalie Jake Allen will all still be out, with forward Alexander Steen possibly added to the injury report also after suffering a stick to the face on Thursday. That means that the Blues will have to rely on their secondary contributors, such as Patrik Berglund, Dmitrij Jaskin, and Scottie Upshall–who led the charge on Tuesday but were quiet on Thursday–to complement Vladimir Tarasenko and give the club a chance to succeed.
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The Blues were off on Friday, so it’s anyone’s guess as to the status of injured players like Gunnarsson and Steen. We know that Bouwmeester, Paajarvi, and Allen will be out, but if Gunnarsson and Steen are both healthy, that could keep recent call-ups Chris Butler and Ty Rattie out of the lineup and restore the Blues to a bit more of a normal group.
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Here’s how the Blues’ lineup might shape up against the Canadiens:
Robby Fabbri–Jori Lehtera–Vladimir Tarasenko
Ty Rattie-Paul Stastny-Troy Brouwer
Scottie Upshall–David Backes–Patrik Berglund
Dmitrij Jaskin–Kyle Brodziak–Ryan Reaves
Kevin Shattenkirk–Alex Pietrangelo
Chris Butler–Colton Parayko
Joel Edmundson-Robert Bortuzzo