Right wing practiced Thursday, missed past two games with
upper-body injury; no disciplinary action against Schenn; Hutton, Upshall skate
HAZELWOOD, Mo. -- The Blue held a limited optional skate on Thursday, but one of the skaters happened to be right wing Vladimir Tarasenko.
Tarasenko, who missed the past two games and final two periods last Saturday with an upper-body injury stemming from an elbow to the mouth/jaw area he took early in the game against the Rangers from defenseman Neal Pionk, was a full participant in the skate on Thursday and coach Mike Yeo deemed it "hopeful" that Tarasenko can rejoin the lineup on Friday against the Vancouver Canucks.
"I can tell you that he felt good today," Yeo said. "The next step is we'll see how the morning skate goes tomorrow.
"... Felt good today. We'll see how he is in the morning. If he's ready to play then we have a spot for him, no question. We're anxious to get him back. Today was a good step. He's been feeling better and was good for him to feel better on the ice, put him through the paces a little bit and so we'll see how he is tomorrow."
Tarasenko leads the Blues in goals with 27 and is second in points with 58 in 71 games behind Brayden Schenn (62).
* No disciplinary action for Schenn -- Speaking of Schenn, the NHL's Department of Player Safety decided that Schenn will not face any disciplinary action stemming from his hit on Bruins center David Krejci at 14:03 of the second period in Wednesday's 2-1 win over Boston.
Schenn received a minor for charging.
"I watched it again and I feel they made the right call," Yeo said. "First off, 'Schenner' is a physical player. He's also an honest player. When I slowed it down, I didn't feel that he left his feet. I felt that he hit through him and sometimes when you do that after the contact, then your feet do kind of leave the ice a little bit, but certainly I don't thunk that his feet were off the ice before contact. Everybody might have a different opinion of that, I don't know. That was my opinion and so I thought it was the right call."
The point of contact was to Krejci's head, but video shows Schenn never left his feet, his arms were by his side and Krejci, who was not injured on the play and finished the game, was in a bit of a crouching position.
"I think as coaches, you're always going to defend your player and you're always going to try and take their side," Yeo said. "They might be saying something different. Their coach might feel differently, but for me, I thought it was the right call.
"I actually thought it was a pretty big moment in the game, to be honest with you. We got that penalty kill. I thought that when we did step up our physicality, that the game took a turn in our direction."
* Hutton, Upshall skate -- Besides Tarasenko, goalie Carter Hutton and left wing Scottie also took part in the optional skate Thursday.
It was Hutton's first skate with teammates (he has skated on his own with goalie coach David Alexander) since he was injured during the morning skate on March 8 against San Jose.
"He's coming along," Yeo said of Hutton. "Another good day today. I don't know if this weekend's going to be a possibility to rejoin the group, but he's certainly getting closer."
Upshall, who has a sprained MCL, skated for a second straight day with teammates. He was initially injured March 3 at Dallas and was scheduled to miss approximately four weeks.
* Yeo OK with Pietrangelo play -- Alex Pietrangelo's attempted clearing pass in the first period Wednesday resulted in Boston's only goal, a power-play goal by Ryan Donato.
On the play, Pietrangelo got the puck behind his goal line. He got it, whirled and attempted to fire it into the air but up the middle of the ice and instead, hit referee Brad Watson with it. The puck fell into the slot and Donato beat Jake Allen for a 1-0 Bruins lead.
Some have asked why Pietrangelo didn't just rim the puck around the boards, and Yeo had this to offer on it and felt Pietrangelo made the right play.
"It is the right call," Yeo said. "There's no question. If he rims that puck around the boards, then their defenseman is standing at the far point, puck stays in and now we've got tired guys trying to defend. Over and over and over again, 'Petro's made that same play all year. There's never been a ref standing there, and I feel bad for the ref. He felt bad. He made a read and found himself in a tough spot, but the ice available to clear that puck was through the middle of the ice and so he made the right play, he had his head up, he knew that there was opportunity to make a good, hard play in the middle of the ice. He knew that none of their players were there, he knew that none of our players were there. He didn't know there was a ref there. Tough play, but he's done that over and over again and it's the right play."
Teams tend to play more along the walls to try and take that option away from the opposition, and that's something that's been relayed by coaches that other ice options are now available, even though they may seem more dangerous plays.
"They always do," Yeo said. "Their first thought is going to be to seal the wall. Boston did it to us three times on our power play. If you don't use the middle of the ice now, the way things are, it's a different story if you're talking about a 12-year-old or pee-wee hockey. You go back to those days where you never pass the puck or move the puck to the front of your net. This is a different story. The way that teams check, the way that they seal the wall, if you're not using the middle of the ice, then you're going to be stuck in your own zone all the time."
Yeo didn't put any blame on Watson and just called it an unfortunate play that went awry for the Blues. But Yeo couldn't remember if he's ever seen an official in the middle of the ice in that situation.
"You don't really think about it unless the puck hits him and it ends up in your net," Yeo said. "It's an unfortunate play, but again, I don't think we should have handled it any differently. I thought [Watson] handled it with a lot of class. He apologized. It was a bad bounce in the game and what I liked is is that I think there's been a lot of times this year earlier in the year where a bad bounce defeated us or broke us. Last couple games, that hasn't been the case."
* Bortuzzo fined -- Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo was fined $3,091.40, the maximum allowed under the collective bargaining agreement stemming from a cross-checking penalty on Bruins forward Jordan Szwarz in the first period of Wednesday's game.
The penalty resulted in the Donato goal mentioned above.
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