St. Louis Blues face Sabres to try and snap three-game skid

The St. Louis Blues look to snap a 3-game losing streak when they visit the Buffalo Sabres tonight in a game that has both teams with significant injury absences. Star centre Robert Thomas remains on IR for the Blues while Buffalo deals with the loss of their own superstar, Tage Thompson, as well as G Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Yes, that is his real name. Finns are just weird like that, apparently.

The Blues have drastically struggled in their last ten games with a 3-7-0 record, coming off a 3rd straight loss to the Boston Bruins at home, a game they had every chance to win if they could've avoided the late goal give up yet again, something that relentlessly plagued the team last season. At 7-9-0 and 6th in the Central Division, it's already looking like another postseason miss for this team. But there's still more than a couple of months to go to turn things around. The Blues just haven't been able to do that with Thomas being out. That has significantly altered their lineups for the past few games, and for tonight's game, the guys suiting up are as follows.

Jake Neighbours, Pavel Buchnevich, and Jordan Kyrou lead the Blues' primary offensive line, while the 2nd line is made up entirely of defensemen in Brandon Saad, captain Brayden Schenn, and Dylan Hollaway, even after taking a puck to the throat, which required a short hospital stay. The Blues' 3rd and 4th lines include Alexey Toropchenko, Radek Faksa, and Nathan Walker, plus Mathieu Joseph, Oskar Sundqvist, and Kasperi Kapanen. On defense, it'll most likely be Ryan Suter and Colton Parayko up front, while P.O. Joseph and Justin Faulk take the secondary defensive lines. Jordan Binnington is likely to get the start in goal in front of Joel Hofer while the Blues also have three healthy scratches for tonight's game: Alex Texier, Leo Loof, and Zack Bolduc.

The Sabres' lineup will look a bit different as well for tonight's game with Thompson out. Zach Benson and Ryan McLeod join Alex Tuch on Buffalo's front offensive line, with the secondary offense consisting of JJ Peterka, Dylan Cozens, and Jack Quinn. On the defensive side of the puck, Rasmus Dahlin and Bowen Byram will primarily handle takeaways and intercepts for the Sabres, and the last line of defense consists of Owen Power and Jacob Bryson. At 7-8-1 on the season, this game is essentially a grudge match between two lower division teams that still need lots of work to do if they want to fight for a playoff spot in the coming months.