(2-12-21) Blues-Coyotes Gameday Lineup

By LOU KORAC
There was a special someone that joined the Blues' optional morning skate on Friday, someone they hope becomes more of a regular in the not-too-distant future.

Vladimir Tarasenko made the trip to Glendale, Ariz. for the Blues' three games against the Arizona Coyotes, which will resume a stretch of seven straight games against the Coyotes today at 8 p.m. (FS-MW, ESPN 101.1-FM), and joined his teammates on the ice (https://twitter.com/StLouisBlues/status/1360309679906197504).

"It was awesome," Blues forward Zach Sanford said of Tarasenko skating. "I've been on the ice with him for a while, but he can still rip the puck like he always could. It's good to have him back out on the ice with us and include him as part of those practices again."

The forward was expected to be reevaluated in five months following surgery Sept. 17 but joined the team on the ice Friday. Blues general manager Doug Armstrong gave that reevaluation Feb. 4 and feels Tarasenko is on schedule.

"The mile post that you go through on this stuff is you get the surgery obviously, you start the rehab, you need to get back to the doctors that performed the surgery to check off on the fence posting in your rehabilitation," Armstrong said then. "All those have been checked off. He's on the ice, he's conditioning. His shoulder's certainly not 100 percent right now, but it's at a point where the safety and the mechanisms are in place that we feel he can skate. He can receive passes, make passes, shoot to a level of his comfort. He's still a ways away. We won't see him for a number of weeks, but he's certainly on the right track."

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The Blues, who have dropped the last three against Arizona, including that gut-wrenching 4-3 shootout loss when they allowed the tying goal by Clayton Keller with 0.7 seconds left on the clock, could stand to do a better job against the line of Keller, Nick Schmaltz and Conor Garland.

That trio has combined for 15 points (six goals, nine assists) in the four games played in St. Louis.

Garland has at least a point in all four games (two goals, four assists), while Schmaltz (two goals, three assists) and Keller (two goals, two assists) have also done their damage.

"They've obviously produced on the power play, which we talked about that and worked on that," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "We've got to be better there, we've got to be more disciplined with penalties. I mean 5-on-5, I think we're just allowing them to have too much offensive zone time. We're not killing the plays enough. They're quick and we've got to do a better job of getting numbers on the puck against them and killing more plays against those guys in the d-zone."

The Blues have to be stewing after the way in which they lost Tuesday.

"We had to get over the disappointment of last game," Berube said. "I believe we played a pretty hard game, a pretty solid game and ended up losing a point. It doesn't sit well with you, but we had a couple days to practice and get some good practice time in there and I think that was good for our team just to clear the air a little bit and just working on stuff, trying to get better as a team.

"They came in our rink and they stole points from us. We've got to come here and do the same. We're here to win a hockey game tonight. That's all we're focused on is tonight's game and that's it."

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Defenseman Colton Parayko, who missed Thursday's practice for maintenance purposes while dealing with an undisclosed injury, is "available" to play tonight, but defenseman Marco Scandella (upper-body injury) and Sammy Blais (upper body) will not despite both getting on the ice. Tyler Bozak (upper body) remains on injured reserve and Robert Thomas (broken thumb) is also out up to six weeks.

"No, not today. He's just out there," Berube said of Scandella. "He feels better today to skate. It's important that he gets on the ice whenever he can. We'll see how he feels after today. I can't really give you an answer on that."

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Arizona has done its best job to blanket Blues forward Jordan Kyrou, who got off to a scorching start to the season.

Kyrou had two assists in the 4-3 win against the Coyotes to open this series Feb. 2 but has no points and is a minus-4 in the three games since. This, after starting the season with 10 points (five goals, five assists) the first nine games of the season.

"I think that teams are keying on him obviously and they understand how quick and skilled he is, but I think it's normal for any young player to have inconsistent play at times," Berube said, "but I thought his practice the last two days was excellent, his speed was excellent and his competitiveness was excellent. I think he realized what was missing and we talked to him about it, and I think you're going to see a better player."

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The Blues' projected lineup:

Ivan Barbashev-Ryan O'Reilly-David Perron

Jaden Schwartz-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou

Zach Sanford-Oskar Sundqvist-Mike Hoffman

Kyle Clifford-Jacob de la Rose-Mackenzie MacEachern

Torey Krug-Justin Faulk

Carl Gunnarsson-Colton Parayko

Vince Dunn-Robert Bortuzzo

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

The healthy scratch is Niko Mikkola. Vladimir Tarasenko (shoulder), Tyler Bozak (upper body), Marco Scandella (upper body), Robert Thomas (thumb) and Sammy Blais (upper body) are out.

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The Coyotes' projected lineup:

Clayton Keller-Nick Schmaltz-Conor Garland

Lawson Crouse-Christian Dvorak-Tyler Pitlick

Dryden Hunt-Derick Brassard-Phil Kessel

Barrett Hayton-Johan Larsson-Christian Fischer

Oliver Ekman-Larsson-Ilya Lyubushkin

Alex Goligoski-Niklas Hjalmarsson 

Jakob Chychrun-Jordan Oesterle

Darcy Kuemper will start in goal; Antti Raanta will be the backup.

The healthy scratches include Jason Demers, Hudson Fasching and Adin Hill. Drake Caggiula (lower body) is out. John Hayden was added to the covid-19 protocol list today and is out.