Oilers at Blues preview: Jay Bouwmeester Returns

Jay Bouwmeester has been out since day three of training camp - one of the team’s many early casualties, caused by a puck off of the ankle. Despite losing a defensive lynchpin, the Blues’ blue-line has been phenomenal, scoring 21 of the team’s goals (seven coming from Alex Pietrangelo and a surprising six coming from Joel Edmundson). Losing Bouwmeester could’ve been a problem, and it wasn’t, aside from probably on the penalty kill.

So, where do we go from here? Whither Vince Dunn?

He’s fine - Carl Gunnarsson will probably be the healthy scratch for tonight.

The Oilers come into Scottrade having lost back to back games to St. Louis and the Dallas Stars. They’re second to last in the Western Conference and aren’t looking like they’re improving much. Connor McDavid is still incredible, but the team’s flat start to the season isn’t getting any better, and his battling a flu bug might put the Oilers in a tight jam tonight.

Tonight’s game is a NBCSN broadcast, presumably so the network can stop denying the United States McDavid. It seems about right that he more than likely won’t be on his A-game tonight, but McDavid even on an off day is dangerous. The rest of the team? Considering that they’re second to last in the NHL in scoring, the Blues probably need to just focus on keeping McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins off of the scoresheet and take care of the scoring on their own. Maybe Bouwmeester can get into the act.