Blues give multiple HUGE updates... This has major implications | St. Louis Blues News

We get multiple huge updates heading into the Blues next game as Jim Montgomery reveals one key player that will not be a part of this lineup heading into the game, including other updates surrounding the team, including line changes, the starting goaltender, and how the St. Louis Blues' key to success relies on one thing as the team looks to build off their recent win. We're going to break down everything you need to know surrounding this game and so much more. But Darius, before we get into it, we want to remind you guys to make sure to go down and hit that free subscribe button, it means the absolute world, plus you guys get to stay up to date with everything to do around the Blues daily from lineup changes, from trades, rumors, anything you can think of you can catch right here with myself and Darius, so make sure to go down and hit it and let's just dive straight into it today. where the first update we get where Buchnevich will not be in the game for a reason which we're going to dive into of course but with the Blues and of course multiple line changes we've seen all year due to injuries and everything in between this one thankfully is not an injury and he's going to have his child birth going into today which is the reason he's being held out of the lineup Darius what is your thoughts on this because of course there's implications with the lineup with Buchnevich out what's your thoughts on him missing this game and do you think there's anyone in particular that could really shine in his absence well first of all i think there's still a level that Pavel Buchnevich can reach that i think a lot of Blues fans are hoping that he reaches although he hasn't had the worst start to this season he's been okay but i think again there's just like another level that fans think he can unlock um before i go any further obviously congratulations to him uh that's a great thing to be out of the lineup rather than you know poor performances or injuries obviously this is a good thing right and this doesn't come around all the time so congratulations to him and that's uh you know really exciting but yeah he uh will be out of the lineup tonight and the Blues have obviously been rolling a little bit i don't know if i would call a two-game win streak rolling necessarily but they've been feeling better about themselves and you know it's on the backs of the second line really and and Jonathan Berggren and Mason McTavish and you know Connor McMichael talked about it a little bit yesterday second line has been firing on all cylinders but there's a couple guys still including that first line including Buchnevich that you'd like a little bit more out of and i think they have a great opportunity tonight against a really good team that's operating at an insane clip by the way and special teams we'll get to that later in the video but uh they have a really good opportunity today and then you have guys like you know Dean that are going to be factoring back into the lineup where you know they've been carried around as extras uh for the most part and obviously Dylan Dubé out with an injury as well so he won't be uh in the lineup anytime soon but pretty uh interesting stuff here for the Blues and uh you know if they can continue to uh put on performance like that you know more consistently and again congratulations to Pavel Buchnevich and i think the biggest thing is this is a team that we've spoke about so much about the depth and young guys waiting to get the opportunity of course we have multiple guys out of the lineup dealing with injuries with booch going out having his child it's incredible to see of course with him going out we're not an injury reason like you said but looking at this there's a lot of guys looking to take a jump of course with Dean coming in but Jake Neighbours is a very interesting player that a lot of people genuinely spoke as maybe the next captain and of course it's Robert Thomas now which no one hates but looking at of course Jake Neighbors and his recent form looking over the stretch of games to start the year and the three games that they've recently played Ottawa two goals of course the game before a goal I think it's the perfect opportunity for a young player looking to make his impact to really get into not only a scoring streak which we want to see every single player on this team but looking at a stretch of games versus the Minnesota Wild which we want to end up winning this game build that win streak continue with the success looking over the stretch of games versus the Wild we can see a lot of one goal games so maybe we see the trend pick up here the goals continue to fly we see a 30 plus goal season out of Jake Neighbors but what is your thoughts on his kind of resurgence i shouldn't say that either because he's an incredible player and hasn't really been struggling but looking at the numbers i'd love to see an assist get on the board and maybe a multi-goal game yeah i don't think that he's necessarily been i don't know struggling too much and again like there's a lot of turnover coming into the season so would you like to see more of certain players is a little bit frustrating to start the season yes but you have to have faith that they're gonna figure it out and continue to change up the lines a little bit and they're dealing with a lot of injuries right especially on the back end so i mean losing Logan May you to start the season sucks just flat out sucks but Jake Neighbours like you said great young players still and you know that third line can be very dynamic for this team so 30 goal scorer not so sure about that but what i want to see is more consistency out of a lot of these players right like what you're starting to see is that second line build that consistency build that chemistry and that's something that's so important and that's only starting to happen right now but that first line hasn't been able to rekindle whatever that is from last year just yet and then the third line again there's been a lot of movement throughout the team so a lot of guys get pushed down the lineups lengthened a little bit they look a little bit different certain guys are playing in different roles doing different things this year so it's going to be interesting to see how they match up against a very good Minnesota Wild team that mark is operating with the number one power play in the entire National Hockey League not only that they have a top 10 penalty kill as well so they've been absolutely lights out to start this season the Blues are going to have to uh have to be really good the Blues penalty kill has also been really good but the power play hasn't been good so when given those opportunities they have not capitalized thus far uh this year but uh going to be without Buchnevich who has spent some time on the power play as well he has two power play points so far this year so they will be without him tonight um it's going to be a big test against a team that is almost perfect in both categories and i think that's the biggest thing of course going into the game there's a lot of competition and you can look at the Blues and say they have a deeper roster down the middle for sure because that's where Minnesota struggles so that gives them the edge for the Blues to go out and really dominate on the face-offs and those positional keys but the big thing is Darius like you said looking at the power play and the penalty kill for both sides looking at the Blues having an atrocious power play 14.3 but looking at the penalty kill one of the top top eight in the entire NHL this is going to be put to test not only with the power play but when looking on the other side with Minnesota dominant when you look at both of these categories and special teams could legitimately make and break this entire game now looking at the power play 36.8 it doesn't even feel real sitting first in the NHL and the Blues a very big struggling team when it comes to power plays ranked two face off at 91.7 which sits top five in the NHL for Minnesota Darius is this one of the things because of course the St Louis Blues could score 10 power play goals and go the next 10 games with none but i think with this type of chance and with the opportunity to go out and prove a point if they can get the power play going against this i think it can bleed into the rest of the games this year sorry i should probably be unmuted for that but um it's all chemistry and it is all consistency those are the two things that i'm going to be saying for the Blues that you're looking for this season so it can can it can build confidence right like if you can break through against a really good team in both of these categories you can start to build that confidence and feel good about yourself because you're starting to build that and ride that momentum a little bit from the last couple of games right so it's going to be a big thing you see the Blues are now one for 12 on the power play within the season like it is poor it is poor and Minnesota's is not sustainable either it's going to come down but for the time being they're hot they're feeling hot that's going to be a big test for the Blues later tonight so it looks like Joel Hofer will get the start you know the rest of the lines not much uh change there but again you need a little bit more out of the top line a little bit more out of the bottom of the lineup i think and uh they should be okay but they need to get that power play going and feeling good about themselves but good news is again the penalty kill has been really good and i think that's the biggest thing especially over the stretch of games we're going to have some tough competition I mean the Minnesota Wild the Predators should be a win you're looking at the Winnipeg Jets a game that we want to dominate in especially what happened a couple of years ago Vegas the Hurricanes the Canadians the Bruins it's going to be a tough road trip but at the end of the day this is going to be a team that has a lot of tests with a lot of young guys pushed into the lineup and of course you want to go out and dominate in every facet let us know your thoughts down in the comments what's the final score of this game going to be who scores the first goal do we finally see the power play come alive because it's going to be tough versus Minnesota but we got faith let us know your thoughts down in the comments I've been your host Mark co-host Darius and take care of yourselves