Lindy Ruff matched an AHL-heavy lineup by the Florida Panthers last night with one of his own in the Stars‘ 4-1 win in San Antonio last night. Tonight’s contest in St. Louis figures to be the polar opposite with two division rivals icing quality lineups as camp progresses.
The Benn and Seguin combination is back in business, as well as Ray Whitney, but this time Cody Eakin is placed in the middle by Shawn Horcoff, who hasn’t played since the first preseason game-
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Valeri Nichushkin played three scrimmages and three preseason games in nine or ten days and now mercifully gets a day or two of rest. He dazzled in the first matchup with the Blues at times, but showed frustration last night in San Antonio.
On defense the big news is that Trevor Daley suffered an upper body injury last night and is being evaluated today. There is no word yet on how long he might miss. Even so, Alex Goligoski gets the night off and Kevin Connauton gets another look as more cuts loom.
Jamie Oleksiak plays once more, and has seen a lot of action in the last 10 days.
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Aaron Rome is skating but will not be ready for the start of the season. If Daley misses real time Oleksiak would certainly be in the lineup, along with Jordie Benn. Brenden Dillon and Stephane Robidas seemed destined to partner up again this year.
The worry with Daley is that he off-season surgery on his neck. We’ll cross our fingers that his current malady is unrelated.
Kari Lehtonen will play the duration in goal tonight. He stopped all 10 shots he faced in about 32 minutes of ice time against Florida Wednesday night, but figures to be tested more heavily in this one.
Highlights from last night, in case you missed them:
A radio feed is expected, so we’ll have a gameday thread up later. Stop by and chat. The St. Louis broadcast was listenable last week…
There’s also this bit of news off of Twitter:
Waivers: Wathier, Francis DAL Desjardins, Cedrick T.B Helenius, Riku T.B Cliche, Marc-Andre L.A
— Renaud Lavoie (@LavoieRenaud) September 21, 2013