Follow me on twitter Follow @stlgoalie As expected the Blues are taking a very young lineup to Columbus today where they will take on the Columbus Blue Jackets. The lineup is expected to be the following:
Forwards – Samuel Blais, Klim Kostin, Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas, Tage Thompson, Adam Musil, Oskar Sunqvist, MacKenzie MacEachern, Wade Megan, Ivan Barbashev, Dmitrij Jaskin, Magnus Paajarvi, and Chris Thorrburn.
Defensemen - Vince Dunn, Jake Walman, Petteri Lindbohm, Jordan Schmaltz, Thomas Vanelli and Robert Bortuzzo
Goalies – Jake Allen and Jordan Binnington
The people of Columbus will being seeing a very green Blues lineup. Jake Allen is expected to play the entire game.
If you assume that Alexander Steen and Robbie Fabbri will join Zachary Sanford on injured reserve to start the year, you really have 2 or 3 roster spots up for grabs, at least one of which will be in the opening lineup.
Five of your six top two line spots are taken with Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn, Paul Stastny, and Vladimir Sobotka. Jaskin or Paajarvi will likely take the other spot in the top 6, at least to start. Is it possible they keep Kostin up with the team to fill that 6th spot? Perhaps I guess but it seems unlikely to me.
Of your bottom six forward spots and seven or eight roster spots five will be taken by the other of Jaskin or Paajarvi, Barbashev, Kyle Brodziak, Beau Bennett, and Chris Thorburn. This leaves two or three roster spots that will likely be filled from Samuel Blais, Wade Megan, or Oskar Sundqvist with an outside chance of the younger kids, Kostin for example, effectively getting an extended camp tryout until Steen or Fabbri are healthy.
I quality the number of spots as I think it is easily possible that the Blues may choose to keep eight defensemen on the roster depending on the status of Jay Bouwmeester’s injury. Colton Parayko, Alex Pietrangelo, Robert Bortuzzo, Carl Gunnarsson, and Joel Edmundson are roster locks. I think Nate Prosser has an inside track on a roster spot both because of his familiarity with Coach Yeo and with his experience. I think the other guaranteed roster spot will be one of the younger defensemen out of Dunn, Walman, Schmaltz and Lindbohm. They could decide to keep two of that group but I believe that is unlikely.
It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers Nashville Predator's Paul McCann, Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others will donate in their name.