Сент-Луис Блюз болон Даллас Старс NHL-ийн улирлын өмнөх тоглолтын бүрэлдэхүүнээ зарлалаа

MARYLAND

HEIGHTS, Mo. — It’s go time for the NHL preseason on Saturday, and

the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars will kick things off after

opening respective training camps just two days ago.

The

Blues and Stars will open preseason play at 6 p.m. at Enterprise

Center, and from a Blues perspective, there’s no time to get

extended looks at potential players looking to crack the opening

night lineup or prospects getting a lot of time with the big club.

But

the Blues will do so on Saturday before getting more time in with

those that will make the club.

Headlining

the lineup tonight includes what is projected to be the opening night

fourth line of Ross Johnston, Pius Suter and Alexey Toropchenko.

“(Tonight),

it will probably be the least amount of veterans dressed,” Blues

coach Jim Montgomery said. “We’ll get a look at some of our young

prospects. Then game two (Monday in Dallas), we’re going to have

our first power play unit go, then game three (Thursday at home

against the Chicago Blackhawks), we’re going to have our second

power play unit go and the last game’s going to be both units going

(Sept. 26 at Chicago). That’s going to be our team playing in the

last game.”

There’s

a good sense of what the lineup will look like Oct. 2 in Dallas when

the Blues and Stars open for keeps, but what’s going to be a battle

is the spots for the 13/14 roster spots among the forwards, and it

includes Oskar Sundqvist, Nathan Walker, Dillon Dube, Otto Stenberg and Jack

Finley all vying for two spots.

“I

think it’s always different with what do you have up front,”

Montgomery said. “Do you have enough offense where you’re just

going to look for checkers and grinders? Or are you lacking offense

where maybe you bring in a guy that’s had some skill to go up in

the second line and you have one guy that’s going to be a grinder.

It’s not your typical guys you’re just looking for that are going

to be just physical guys and other attributes would be can they play

center and can they play wing? Can they win draws? Do they penalty

kill or do they power play? It all depends on the makeup of your team

and I just love the fact that we’ve got a lot of different elements

that we can choose from right now. It’s very competitive.

“You

don’t want two guys that look the same. That you don’t want

unless you had a team that your four lines are set and you have a

fourth line that is an identity line like we had two years ago and

then you have a third line that’s a pure checking line that’s a

hard 200-foot line and then you have two scoring lines and then

you’re just looking for certain things, but we need versatility

right now because as we look through our lineup, we think we have a

first line, we think we have a fourth line. The second and third

line, they have to find an identity and that’s [because] we have

new bodies, we have new people, we have other opportunities too with

players that have been coming in.

“I

think everybody that has an opportunity to earn those spots have

shown really well. Whether it’s ‘Walks’ or ‘Sunny,’ Dube

had an excellent day [Friday]. (Dylan) Peterson I thought was

excellent [Friday]. (Aleksanteri) Kaskimaki’s been really good and

Stenberg I thought had a really good day [Friday] after an average

day yesterday.”

It

makes the limited time on ice and practice sessions so important for

all these players.

“I

think with such a short camp, every practice means a lot,”

Montgomery said. “We don’t have a lot of time to make decisions

so they don’t have a lot of time to impress. It’s either you’re

coming here to fight for a job and grab a job, or you’re watching

your job disappear. If you’re not playing with any kind of

intensity and any kind of purpose out there, you’re going to be

left behind.”

–

– –

Dagenais, the No. 16 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, will make his Blues

debut and more than likely, get sent back to juniors where he will

play a third and likely final season with the Quebec Remparts of the

Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

“Pretty

excited,” Dagenais said. “Since I was a little kid, I’ve been

watching those games. You’re going on the ice on an NHL rink, so

it’s pretty nice. I’m just going to give it my all.”

Dagenais’s father, former NHLer Pierre Dagenais, was supposed to come in to St. Louis for the game to see his son play but his flight was canceled.

Montgomery

really likes what the 6-foot-4,

186-pound can bring and feels there’s some unique traits there.

“Real

intelligent player,” Montgomery said. “You can tell that he’s a

gifted offensive player because he always knows what he’s going to

do with the puck before he gets it. Incredible release and he’s

really deceptive because he’s a little bit of a 10-to-2 skater on a

clock and his feet are going that way and that makes it hard because

the angles are completely different and he’s going to be very

deceptive, I think.

“It’s

not unique, no, but Ulf Dahlen was the most famous one for it, but it

makes him slippery.”

Will

have more from Dagenais in a separate story.

–

– –

Blues Projected Lineup:

Suter-Ross Johnston

Aleksanteri

Kaskimaki-Zach Dean-Justin Carbonneau

Maddox

Dagenais-Jack Finley-Otto Stenberg

Juraj

Pekarcik-Jakub Stancl-Dylan Peterson

Koromyslov-Tyler Tucker

Colin

Ralph-Theo Lindstein

Quinton

Burns-Lukas Fischer

Binnington will start in goal and play the

first two periods;

Georgii Romanov will back up and play the final period.

–

– –

Stars Projected

Lineup:

Seminoff-Arttu Hyry-Cameron Hughes

Dylan

Hrychowian-Artem Shlanie-Emil Hemming

Curtis

McKenzie-Jack Becker-Justin Ertel

Michael

Sgarbossa-Christian Fitzgerald-Charlie Paquette

Anderson-Kyle Capobianco

Trey

Taylor-Kyle Burroughs

Jakub

Vanecek-Ben Gleason

Poirer is

projected to start in goal; Brandon

Halverson would

be the backup.

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