(1-20-21) Sharks-Blues Gameday Lineup

By LOU KORAC
ST. LOUIS -- The Blues appear to be making one change to their lineup for the rematch against the San Jose Sharks (8 p.m.; FS-MW, ESPN 101.1-FM).

Sammy Blais, fresh off his two-game suspension stemming from a hit to the head of Colorado's Devon Toews in the season-opener, will jump into the lineup for veteran Kyle Clifford.

The Blues (2-1-0), who beat the Sharks 5-4 Monday, held a highly-populated optional morning skate ahead of their game with San Jose Wednesday, and Blais left the ice early while Clifford stayed on the ice to get in work long with Mackenzie MacEachern long after everyone else had left.

"Yeah, maybe," Blues coach Craig Berube answered when asked if Blais would play. "I still haven't made that decision, but that's what I'm leaning towards and it could happen."
With Blais in the lineup, he'll join a line with Ivan Barbashev and Oskar Sundqvist.

"He's obviously a physical guy and really skilled," Sundqvist said of Blais. "Me and 'Barbs' have played with him before, so it's going to be easy to play with him again. I think Cliffy has done a great job playing with us. I'm sure we're going to swap around during the season when it's so tight and there are so many games. Just keep playing our game. We know what Chief and the coaching staff and our team expect from us. Just keep doing what we've been doing. I'm sure he's excited to be back in the lineup."

Clifford, who scored in the opener against Colorado, played just 6:09 in the game, one that had plenty of special teams involved and a lot of goals. And with a compressed schedule, the Blues will have to utilize everyone to keep bodies fresh as often as possible.

"We've got healthy bodies now too so it's good to keep it that way," Sundqvist said. "I think we have such a deep team, it doesn't really matter who's in the lineup. Everyone knows their job and what to do. I think that's one of our strengths this season that we're so deep on both ends."

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Defensemen Colton Parayko and Marco Scandella, who did not practice on Tuesday because of what Berube called a maintenance day, were on the ice Wednesday.
Parayko skated briefly and took in some light self drills before departing, while Scandella put in a full skate.

Berube said he believes they will play tonight.

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The Blues will be searching for their first 1-0 lead of the season after surrendering the first goal in each of the first three games.

Historically, teams that score first tend to win 67 percent of the time, while teams that don't, win 33 percent of the time.

"I think it'll come," Blues center Ryan O'Reilly said. "I think with bounces and such. I thought we played a great first period last game and we come out of it we're down 2-0. That happens, but there's no panic in our game. We knew it would come and that's exactly what happened. We get a break, someone makes a great play and gets us going and then it steamrolls from there. We'd like to score first and not look back, but it is a game. It's 60 minutes and it's about constantly building our game the best way possible, and if we score first, we score first and if not, we'll crawl back into it."

Berube isn't concerned with it yet either. He feels the Blues have been knocking on the door early in games.

"Even the second Colorado game, we had opportunities in the first period," Berube said. "I thought last game we really came out strong the first 10 minutes, we had some chances, but it'll come. You've got to deal with things, and if we're down, we'll fight back and hopefully we can score first. That's what we want to do, but that's not always going to be the case. You just go play.

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The NHL announced on Tuesday that as of Tuesday's games, the League will be using game pucks without the imbedded tracking technology. The decision was made after concerns were raised about the puck’s performance during the first few days of the 2020-21 season. A review by the league determined that the first supply of 2020-21 pucks did not receive the same precise finishing treatments during the off-season manufacturing process as were used during the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs. It is expected that a new supply of the league’s “tracking pucks” will be available soon and, after undergoing appropriate quality control testing, will be back in use for all games. In the interim, the league will use the official game pucks from the 2019-20 season and will continue to utilize player tracking technology for all games.

Berube and Sundqvist didn't even realize the pucks were different, but O'Reilly played along, jokingly

"Yeah, it wouldn't go in the net for me," O'Reilly said. "That was obviously a big change. Maybe I'll be scoring a lot more now. 

"I didn't really notice anything. Couldn't really tell if there's any difference. For us, I think most guys haven't noticed anything."

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* Jordan Kyrou has scored the game-winner in each of the two Blues' wins and ce can become the 10th player in the NHL’s expansion era (since 1967-68) to score each of his team’s first three game-winning goals in a season (regardless of when they occurred). The only Blues player to achieve the feat is Bernie Federko (three in 1981-82).

* O'Reilly needs one more assist for 100 with the Blues.

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The Blues' projected lineup:

Zach Sanford-Ryan O'Reilly-David Perron

Jaden Schwartz-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou 

Mike Hoffman-Robert Thomas-Tyler Bozak 

Ivan Barbashev-Oskar Sundqvist-Sammy Blais

Torey Krug-Colton Parayko

Marco Scandella-Justin Faulk

Vince Dunn-Carl Gunnarsson

Jordan Binnington will start in goal; Ville Husso will be the backup.

Mackenzie MacEachern, Kyle Clifford and Niko Mikkola will be healthy scratches. Vladimir Tarasenko (shoulder) and Robert Bortuzzo (upper body) are out.

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The Sharks' projected lineup:

Ryan Donato-Logan Couture-Kevin Labanc

Timo Meier-Tomas Hertl-Evander Kane

John Leonard-Dylan Gambrell-Stefan Noesen

Marcus Sorensen-Patrick Marleau-Matt Nieto

Marc-Edouard Vlasic-Erik Karlsson

Mario Ferraro-Brent Burns

Nikolai Knyzhov-Radim Simek

Martin Jones will start in goal; Devan Dubnyk will be the backup. 

Noah Gregor, Fredrik Handemark and Jacob Middleton are healthy scratches. The Shark report no injuries.