The St. Louis Blues could be getting some much-needed reinforcements ahead of their matchup against the Buffalo Sabres as a trio of players are nearing their return.
The St. Louis Blues will come out of the Christmas break ready to make a splash in the Western Conference after a below average start to the season. St. Louis kicks off a five-game homestand with the Buffalo Sabres and will feature a homecoming for a variety of players.
Maybe the biggest storyline of the game tonight is the return of Carter Hutton, Vladimir Sobotka, and Tage Thompson who all played for the Blues a season ago. Hutton signed as an unrestricted free agent while Sobotka and Thompson were traded in the Ryan O’Reilly trade.
Buffalo Sabres (3rd In Atlantic)
Record: 21-11-5
Last 10: 4-4-2
Point Leaders: Jack Eichel (48). Jeff Skinner (38)
Buffalo has been one of the surprise teams in the NHL this season. Led by young star Eichel and newly acquired Skinner, the Sabres are seemingly a legitimate playoff contender.
Hutton is one of the few backup goalies to leave St. Louis for a starting job and succeed. Chad Johnson was placed on waivers, Brian Elliot has been inconsistent in Philadelphia and Calgary, but Hutton has been a great number one goalie for Buffalo.
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All three injured Blues players joined the team for their morning skate this morning. Robby Fabbri, Alex Pietrangelo, and Carl Gunnarsson are all nearing their return to the lineup.
Fabbri is the closest one to return, he was skating on the Blues extra line this morning and is ready to go.
However, Craig Berube said that he wants to stick with the lineup that the Blues have had in their last handful of games and believes that the team is playing much better of late and does not want to mess up the chemistry the forward lines have.
This is a bold strategy, Fabbri is one of the Blues elite scorers on the roster and needs to be in the lineup when he is healthy. It will, however, be hard to decide where he will be inserted into the lineup when he is ready to go.
The team is playing better hockey and with the fourth line, in particular, playing some of their best hockey of the season, Berube will need to move one of the top 9 forwards down to the fourth line to make room for Fabbri.
The Blues will be a much better team when all three of their injured players are reinserted into the lineup. The loss of their captain and a forward who they counted on to score 20 goals is a significant loss but I believe the Blues have done a good job covering for these players during their absence.