GameThread for St. Louis Blues at New Jersey Devils, Nov 4, 2014

So, as has become the usual, no Paul Stastny tonight and no T.J. Oshie, though Stastny did make the trip. He's "days away" from returning though, so as Jeremy Rutherford points out, this may be Dmitrij Jaskin's last shot for a little bit. He's in tonight as Magnus Paajarvi goes from starting on the first line to the pressbox. Such is life on a Ken Hitchcock coached team, I suppose.

Coach Hitch referenced the last back end of a back to back game in his interview with Rutherford, but he might as well've been talking about last night's game against the Rangers - the first period start has to improve.

"We've got to be a little more ready for the first period to play our game and keep it simple. And then let the game flow from there. We had good energy at the end of the Anaheim game, but we didn't have great energy at the start and a lot of it was our fault. We're trying to create offense, making it difficult, trying to play too much east-west. So to me, it's keep it simple and see if we can build some good minutes in the first period. The first period for me is everything."

I'm not sure what last night was to Hitch, but personally I found it frustrating to see the Blues nearly run out of MSG. Tonight is the second of a back-to-back, sure, but it required at the most half an hour of travel, and the Blues have some momentum. Take advantage of it.

This is your GameDay Thread. Comment like you're voting in a Chicago election: early and often. Let's do this. Let's go Blues.