Canadiens at Blues probable lines: As IR woes continue, so do the call-ups

The Blues have been forced to place Ville Husso and Jake Walman on the IR. They join Klim Kostin and James Neal on the growing list of players that we won’t see for a while, while Michael Peca joins the Blues roster.

The Springfield Thunderbirds are being hammered by Covid-19 issues right now much like the Blues have been, and it’s not doing their team many favors that the Blues have to continuously call up their best players. Matthew Peca is the latest to get the call to St. Louis, and it’s helpful that he’s the Thunderbirds’ leading goal scorer with ten. Drafted in 2011 by Tampa Bay, he’s got 78 NHL games under his belt, including 44 with the Canadiens. Most recently, he was a member of the Ottawa Senators, playing 14 games for them over the last two seasons. Peca was signed this off-season to a one-year, two way contract with the Blues.

The irony of sending Walman and Husso to the IR is that the lines are getting more filled out as more salary cap relief comes, but more cap relief has come because players are getting injured. It’s a revolving door at this point.

Here’re tonight’s lines, from the always excellent In the Slot gameday report by Lou Korac:

Forwards:

Brandon Saad-Ryan O’Reilly-Jordan Kyrou

Pavel Buchnevich-Ivan Barbashev-Vladimir Tarasenko

Nathan Walker-Brayden Schenn-Oskar Sundqvist

Dakota Joshua-Logan Brown-Matthew Peca

Defense:

Niko Mikkola-Colton Parayko

Marco Scandella-Torey Krug

Scott Perunovich-Robert Bortuzzo

Goalies:

Charlie Lindgren

Jon Gillies