Hurricanes at Blues projected lines

After Friday’s practice and the one-on-one conversations that Craig Berube had with his players, it’s pretty clear that the lines were going to be adjusted. With the depth the Blues have among their top nine, these new lines shouldn’t be seen as a punishment - Jordan Kyrou can play just as well being centered by Brayden Schenn as he can being centered by Ryan O’Reilly.

Shifting Pavel Buchnevich back with Robert Thomas and Vladimir Tarasenko is a no-brainer. The offense hasn’t been the Blues’ issue this season, but against Carolina firepower is going to help. That’s a firepower line.

Berube has also flipped Marco Scandella and Niko Mikkola. Scandella will be with Justin Faulk, who is short his partner Torey Krug due to injury. Mikkola will be on the third pairing with Robert Bortuzzo.

Jordan Binnington doesn’t bear all of the weight for the Blues’ clunker of a performance Thursday night, but it still wasn’t a good showing from him. Husso, then, will be in net.

Here are tonight’s lines, from stlblues.com:

Forwards

Saad - O’Reilly - Perron

Buchnevich - Thomas - Tarasenko

Barbashev - Schenn - Kyrou

Walker - Brown - Toropchenko

Defense

Leddy - Parayko

Scandella - Faulk

Mikkola - Bortuzzo

Goalie

Husso