Blackhawks at Blues projected lines

After Thursday night’s absolute clunker of a game - a 7-4 loss to the New Jersey Devils - something had to give. The lines have been tweaked, a defenseman that hasn’t played since the dawn of time is in, and the Blues’ backup has yet another chance to solidify himself as the 1A in a contract year.

Pavel Buchnevich is back with Robert Thomas and Vladimir Tarasenko, reuniting a very successful trio and spreading the scoring around. Thomas, between Kyrou and Tarasenko, had a rough go of it on Thursday (a collective -8). By moving Kyrou onto a line with Brayden Schenn, and Ryan O’Reilly, it gives the Blues two very well balanced scoring lines up front.

On defence, Marco Scandella is missing his first game of the season due to injury. The Blues’ defensive depth is fairly strong, but Scandella has been rolled out nightly in hopes that his play, at some point, would improve. He’s been unable to find consistent chemistry with either Robert Bortuzzo or Colton Parayko, so here’s to Jake Walman clicking with Bort.

Here’s to just a better game in general tonight. Tonight’s lines are from stlblues.com:

Forwards

Schenn - O’Reilly - Kyrou

Buchnevich - Thomas - Tarasenko

Saad - Barbashev - Perron

Kostin - Joshua - Sundqvist

Defense

Mikkola - Parayko

Krug - Faulk

Walman - Bortuzzo

Goalie

Husso