By LOUIE KORAC
ST. LOUIS -- Blues coach Davis Payne, although pleased with his group's performance during Wednesday night's 5-1 win at Minnesota, understands this is the preseason and mixing and matching is the way to go to get a full understanding of his personnel during the preseason.
Payne got more from the group that played Wednesday as opposed to the squad that dressed for Tuesday night's 3-1 home loss to Colorado.
The power play was a huge difference, as the Blues were 0-for-6 with the man advantage Tuesday while scoring three times on seven opportunities Wednesday.
"The power play has to make a difference," Payne said. "It's not going to every night. There's a group of penalty killers that are paid to defend that situation, too. ... The power play has to maintain momentum, it has to maintain pressure and the team has to come back 5 on 5 and maintain that role.
"We did a much better job with our two-man game in the offensive zone maintaining possession. The zone time went up. Power plays went up because of that and the power play was quite sharp. I just want to see this group maintain that in the right direction."
After a pair of groups worked out Thursday and today at Scottrade Center, this is what the lineup shapes up to look like for tonight's rematch with the Wild.
The forwards in the lineup include:
David Perron-David Backes-Brad Boyes
Alex Steen-Jay McClement-B.J. Crombeen
Chris Porter-T.J. Hensick-Nick Drazenovic
Anthony Nigro-Brett Sonne-Cody Beach
The extra forwards are Stephen MacAulay, Adam Cracknell and Ryan Reaves.
Defensive pairings include:
Carlo Colaiacovo-Tyson Strachan
Ian Cole-Roman Polak
Eric Brewer-Mark Cundari
The extra d-men include Dean Arsene and Daryl Boyle.
In goal will be Ty Conklin, his first action of this preseason. He will be backed up by Ben Bishop, who stopped 23 of 24 shots Wednesday in Minnesota.
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