By LOU KORAC
BOSTON -- Jake Allen will get the start today, his first one in 23 days, when the Blues (31-18-3) look to extend a three-game winning streak against the red-hot Boston Bruins (29-11-8) at TD Garden (6 p.m.; FS-MW, KMOX 1120-AM).
Allen's last start came on Jan. 9, a 7-4 loss against the Florida Panthers, a game in which he was pulled after allowing a fifth goal on the 23rd shot in the second period.
Allen has played in one game since, relieving Hutton for the remaining 53 minutes of a 5-2 loss to Arizona on Jan. 20, stopping 30 of 32 shots.
Allen is 1-8-0 in his past nine starts with a 3.39 goals-against average and .896 save percentage in those nine games. He allowed five goals in a second straight start and 28 in those nine.
But according to coach Mike Yeo, despite Carter Hutton's sizzling stretch of 8-1-1 with a 1.72 GAA and .942 save percentage, this was what the Blues, winners of five of their past six, had in mind.
"It was part of the plan," Yeo said. "We were excited to get him back in and what a better chance, what a better test than this.
"When I told him coming out of the break that he was going to have the Boston game, he was excited, and that's what you're hoping to hear."
Allen is 3-1-0 in five career games against the Bruins, who had their 18-game point streak snapped with a 3-1 loss to Anaheim after going 14-0-4 the previous 18 games. Allen has a 1.92 GAA and .940 save percentage against the Bruins.
"To me, it's not a big story right now," Yeo said. "I can understand sort of why we want it to be. The story, in a lot of ways, has been about 'Hutts' play and his performance and obviously the playing time he got because of that, but obviously we know what Jake is capable of and what he's done for us and what we continue to believe that he will do for us. A good chance to get him in here."
The Blues would like to get Allen going down the stretch and into the postseason with 31 games remaining and will need him to do so. What better way than to have him get back on track against an opponent such as this?
"That's on him a little bit, but that's also on us, too, getting him the net and getting him some reps and some opportunities," Yeo said. "He hasn't played a whole lot here in a long while. I expect him to come out and be competitive in the game and I expect us to be competitive in front of him."
Perhaps the dads trip, and Kurt Allen along, will be a good dose for Allen, and his teammates will want to perform well in front of him.
"'Hutts' has been unbelievable for us this year. 'Jakey' was unbelievable for us at the start of the year," Blues center Brayden Schenn said. "It's a long season. It's not going to be all the way up for the whole year. If you look around at every player in this locker room, everyone's going to have some ups and downs, and tonight's a chance for 'Jakey' to go back in there and get us a big win. He's worked his butt off, has a positive personality around the dressing room when 'Hutts' has been in the net. We're going to go out there and play hard for him and 'Jakey,' he'll play well tonight."
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Speaking of dads, who are 4-0-0 with the Blues on the road and 7-0-0 all-time including home games, according to Jay Bouwmeester's dad Dan Bouwmeester, Schenn's dad Jeff Schenn is racking up quite the frequent flyer miles.
Jeff Schenn is in the midst of a trip of a lifetime that began in his hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan down to Tampa with Brayden last week for All-Star weekend, to St. Louis for the beginning of the Blues' dads trip to Boston. Then he'll leave the Blues' trip for a cross-country flight to Los Angeles for Brayden's older brother, Arizona defenseman Luke Schenn, to be on the Coyotes' dads trip, back to Glendale for a Coyotes home game and back to Saskatoon.
"He's racking up the air miles, frequent flyer miles. He enjoys it," Brayden said of his dad. "I think he just feels very fortunate and lucky to be doing this, and I think all the dads in this room do. Us as players, we're lucky and then the dads, they get to come and see two games and what it's all about, live the life as an NHL player between the meals on the road, playing, dressing room, how we get treated. We're lucky as players and dads, it's nice to have them along for the ride.
"(He's) still a firefighter, still has to work a little bit, but he scheduled this one for a while now. He's very lucky to be doing this, two sons in the NHL and we're lucky as brothers to have our dad along for the trip. It's funny how it's all in the same (time), but he's making it work."
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Perhaps a little tough love and a trip to the minors got Blues forward Ivan Barbashev to work on his game again.
Barbashev, who was assigned to the Chicago Wolves and missed 21 games with the Blues, came back with renewed vigor and has been getting the job done as of late, including a big first goal in a 3-1 win over Montreal on Tuesday.
And Yeo felt he did tackle this assignment well.
"Yeah, I do. He went down and we told him basically that we need him to get back," Yeo said. "We were counting on him and we believed that we would. We told him to take advantage of the opportunity to gain your confidence, to find your game, and he's done that. Since he's come back, he certainly looks like a different player. I like the fact that during the bye week he went down and played again, and I think it shows that he's confident right now and certainly aggressive in his game."
"... I have a lot of confidence in him. I have a lot of confidence in our whole group."
Barbashev has been skating on a top-six line with Paul Stastny and Vladimir Tarasenko; he even went through a four-game stretch from Jan. 6-Jan. 16 collecting five points (one goal, four assists).
"I've got a lot of better pace than at the start of the season probably," Barbashev said. "I don't know, especially when you're playing with 'Vladi' and 'Stas,' it's great. It's a lot of fun to play with those guys and it makes it easier.
"I'm just trying to do the best out there and playing every shift for 100 percent. Sometimes mistakes happen, but I just learning and I think I'm doing pretty good with that. I'm just keep playing better out there.
Players can take it one of two ways when they get demoted, and Barbashev took it the right way, and he knew nobody was going to get him back here other than his performance on the ice.
"Oh yeah, for sure. It was all on me," Barbashev said. "I knew I didn't play great when I was here, but once I got sent down, I got things together and I just started working hard every single day.
"... It was probably the best option for me to go down there and play some minutes and I just got better."
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Forward Zach Sanford (shoulder) came along for his first trip of the season, but before anyone gets hyped up thinking he will be back in the lineup soon, take a step back.
Sanford and his father Michael Sanford get the opportunity to enjoy the dads trip together, too, and it's one both are looking forward to.
"He's so pumped up," Sanford said of his dad. "He was so excited. It's so cool for them to see what we do, see how it works and stuff. It's kind of funny that it ended up being in Boston."
Sanford, from nearby Salem, Mass., continues to ramp up his rehab from shoulder surgery but isn't on the horizon, according to Yeo.
Not yet.
"He's part of the team. We want him to be part of the dads trip," Yeo said. "He's putting lots of work in. He's from the area. We wanted to make sure that he's part of it. I would say that he's not close to playing right now."
Sanford, however, is beginning to absorb some light contact, and that's the next step to getting back to the lineup. He was injured on the first day of training camp on Sept. 15 and dislocated his left shoulder.
"Today, we did a lot of puck protecting, kind of just have guys push on me, lean on me and me do the same thing to them," Sanford said. "I think that's the second step of contact. Maybe the first one was light stuff. We'll just continue to turn it up from there.
"Everything's been good, no problems. The light's there. Getting that contact in and starting to shoot and skate a lot more. To be able to get out there in the morning skates with the guys, that's really good for me."
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When the Blues assigned center Oskar Sundqvist to San Antonio of the American Hockey League on Wednesday, it was done with the purpose of getting in a conditioning assignment.
Sundqvist was a healthy scratch the past six games and 12 of the past 13 and the Blues want to get him into some game action.
"He needs some ice time, he needs to play," Yeo said. "It's unfair to ask hm to come in right now and perform to the best of his abilities when he hasn't played games. I think that he's putting the work in on the ice and he's spending his time in the gym, he's spending his time doing the extra skating and the skill work but nothing's the same as playing games. We're going to get him a chance to go down and get some confidence, really work on the offensive part of his game. There's a lot of parts to 'Sunny's game that I really like. His worst games are never bad games. What we want to do is make sure is we get more good games in there for him. In order to do that, he needs to find a way to create more offense and a little bit more involved in the offensive zone."
Sundqvist has three assists in 30 games this season.
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The Blues know what they're up against tonight and are prepared for a tough matchup against the Bruins. But the Blues seem to like playing in this building; they're 8-1-0 here the past nine matchups.
"I would say that they're the best team in the National Hockey League, clearly they're the beat team in the National Hockey League the last two months; 28-3-4 is their record over that time," Yeo said. "Pretty impressive. They had some injuries early in the season. I think that gave an opportunity to get some of their young players some good experience, some good ice time to get acclimated to the league and all of the sudden you start to insert some of their veteran players. They've got a real nice mix right now. When you think about veteran players that have won Stanley Cups and the leadership that they provide, the play that they provide and sort of the model that they give to these young players as far as how to play the game and how to prepare night after night, certainly they're providing a good challenge here for us tonight."
"We know we've got a big job to do tonight and we're looking forward to it," Schenn said.
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The Blues' projected lineup:
Ivan Barbashev-Paul Stastny-Vladimir Tarasenko
Jaden Schwartz-Brayden Schenn-Alexander Steen
Vladimir Sobotka-Patrik Berglund-Tage Thompson
Scottie Upshall-Kyle Brodziak-Dmitrij Jaskin
Joel Edmundson-Alex Pietrangelo
Jay Bouwmeester-Colton Parayko
Vince Dunn-Robert Bortuzzo
Jake Allen will start in goal; Carter Hutton will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Carl Gunnarsson and Chris Thorburn. Zach Sanford (shoulder) is on the trip but is out. Robby Fabbri (knee) is out for the season.
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The Bruins' projected lineup:
Danton Heinen-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak
Jake DeBrusk-David Krejci-Ryan Spooner
Peter Cehlarik-Riley Nash-David Backes
Tim Schaller-Sean Kuraly-Frank Vatrano
Zdeno Chara-Brandon Carlo
Torey Krug-Adam McQuaid
Matt Grzelcyk-Kevan Miller
Tuukka Rask will start in goal; Anton Khudobin will be the backup.
The healthy scratch will be Paul Postma. Noel Acciari (lower body), Charlie McAvoy (abnormal heart rhythm), and Anders Bjork (upper body) are out. Brad Marchand is out serving a five-game suspension.
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