By Chris Gift
Greetings, and Happy Monday, Boyes and girl.
The Blues are on the ice at noon local time in Toronto, playing the ever-popular quasi-holiday matinee.
Contrary to popular belief, the Blues have no interest in moving their game against the Kings next Friday the 24th to a noon start in honor of United Nations Day.
Chris Kerber will be providing the descriptions and accounts for most of us via KMOX, unless you have the NHL's Center Ice package. The game will be shown internationally on something called LeafsTV.
It looks like one-time Game Time adopted favorite son, Lee Stempniak, will be sitting out his second game in a row (Jesus, he's missed 2/3 of the season- he needs to start earning his money).
Because of Dutchie's abscence, the Post-Dispatch's Jeremy Rutherford is reporting that TJ Oshie has been promoted to Stempniak's spot, on the left side of the line with Andy McDonald and Brad Boyes. Once again, the Blues' coaching staff is going to give fourth line center Jay McClement a shot at being a center on a scoring line, inserting him in Oshie's spot between Walt Tkachuk and David Backes.
Look for Manny to be in goal, and Chris Mason to be back on the bench- Ears, Jr. is off to a rousing start, isn't he?
JR is also reporting that Paul Kariya, Patrik Berglund and David Perron will form another line, while only Cam Jannsen and Chris Porter are listed as fourth liners.
Will the Blues dress seven defensemen and 11 forwards as they did on Saturday on against the Islanders? Don't put it past them, but DJ King and Yan Stastny may both be healthy enough to dress today.
Check back around noonish for witty commentary, indepth analysis, and random pop-culture references.
Update: That Brad Lee, is one smart feller. He pointed out that...
October 13th, 2008 at 10:29 am eBy the way, as has been pointed out in other comments and as will be illustrated in the live blog shortly, Center Ice still has their free preview today. I don’t know if this counts for online as well, but it does for satellite and cable.
So I'll be...he's right.
Tune in to Channel 627 on DishNet to view the game in all of its glory.
Brad also points out that not only do Canadians love Christopher Columbus, but they're also celebrating Thanksgiving today. So happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends up north.