Devils At Blues Morning Open Thread: Blues' Reinforcements Have Tough Battle

To wit: the Blues have four players out tonight for sure: Jay Bouwmeester, Magnus Paavarvi, Carl Gunnarsson, and Jake Allen. Paul Stastny may play tonight, he may not. The team's called up Chris Butler and Ty Rattie to fill in some of the gaps; Butler should sub in fine for Gunnarsson, and Rattie needs to make the most of his time playing in Paajarvi's spot so the Blues can showcase him for whatever trade they'll be giving up on underdeveloped young talent in.

Brian Elliott gets his chance to shine and hopefully finally get the goal scoring support that he's been lacking during most of his strong performances this year. You hate to think about injuries as golden opportunities, but sometimes they're just that.

The lines won't look right tonight, but maybe the outcome will be. The last time these two teams met back on November 10th was a 2-0 shutout featuring goals from Martin Havlat and Paajarvi, and a whopping 24 save shut out from Allen. There's no reason (aside from the injuries, but I'm trying to be positive) that Elliott and the Blues can't have a similar outcome today.

This is your morning open thread. Check back later on for a Lighting the Lamp, your preview, some line updates, and the GDT. While you're waiting on the puck to drop, please check out All About The Jersey and say hi.