With lineups looking more realistic, preseason trudges on: Blues at Wild GDT

You know you're into the mucky part of the preseason when the big storyline for tonight is that Scott Nichol Will Take The Ice Tonight!

At least most of the kids we all knew were going back to the AHL/Juniors have already headed back to the AHL/Juniors. Tonight's Blues lineup will have lots of NHL faces for the first time, as Barret Jackman, Kevin Shattenkirk, Carlo Colaiacovo, Alex Pietrangelo, Roman Polak and Nikita Nikitin are all dressed out. On offense the Blues will have more than one NHL-quality line for the first time, as 11 of the forwards are guys who definitely have spots on the roster this year.

Jaroslav Halak is your starter tonight.

The wild cards look to be Evgeny Grachev, Chris Porter and Ryan Reaves, who are battling for the last two spots (until David Perron can re-claim his spot in the lineup). It'll be interesting to see if Grachev continues to rack up points now that the opponents are closer to NHL quality than the AHL quality they were when he scored three goals and added an assist in his first three preseason games.

The broadcast tonight is the Wild feed. The other team has a bloggy blog, called Hockey Wilderness, T.J. Oshie's dad is in attendance, so feel free to tweet him. This, then, must be your GDT. Who drinkin' on a Tuesday?