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Observations From Blues' 4-0 Preseason Win Vs. Blackhawks

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The St. Louis Blues closed out the preseason in impressive fashion with a 4-0 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center in Chicago on Saturday.

The Blues (2-3-1) used a half and half lineup, inserting a number of younger players they still wanted to get a look at along with a couple veterans fighting for spots.

One of those is Milan Lucic, in camp on a professional tryout who scored his first goal; Robert Thomas and Otto Stenberg each had a goal and an assist, Logan Mailloux had two assists, and Aleksanteri Kaskimaki also scored for the Blues, who scored three times in the second period, and Joel Hofer made eight saves through two periods before Colten Ellis cleaned up the third with nine stops.

The Blues will now work during the week starting on Sunday before opening the season Thursday at home against the Minnesota Wild.

Here are tonight’s observations:

* It’s going to come down to Lucic/Texier for the final roster spot – With Mathieu Joseph out of the lineup Saturday, one has to assume the Blues have seen enough from him to feel he’s earned his roster spot.

As for Lucic, this was the most noticeable he’s been since he’s arrived in St. Louis. His goal is a perfect example of how he has to play, work to keep a puck in the offensive zone, keep it it alive, find the open man, then move to the net and park his big, strong 6-foot-3, 235-pound body, getting a piece of Mailloux’s shot off the left circle at 13:13 of the second period to give the Blues a 2-0 lead:

Lucic finished the game with a game-high eight hits in 14:35. He has to be making an impact with his body in order to have success. He did so in this game.

"Establishing the front of the net winning battles," Lucic said. "I felt like I could have done a better job of winning battles coming into this game. Our whole team, it was probably our best effort as far as winning battles, keeping pucks alive, playing in the O-zone. So not only myself, a lot of guys got rewarded for that tonight."

Texier had one really skilled play with roughly two minutes left when behind the net, he was deceitful in coming back against the grain with a pass to Pius Suter that was stopped in front, but this was his chance to really make some high-end plays against a AHL-type lineup and just didn’t do so playing on a line with Suter and Jordan Kyrou.

This is going to be a tough call for the Blues, who do have the luxury of extending Lucic’s PTO every 10 days if they feel like he needs more time to showcase himself and keep from putting Texier on waivers.

I just don’t have a sense where they will go with this at the moment. It’s literally a 50/50 call.

"That's a better question for management, but as far as for me, it's a tough bump in the road getting a groin injury there," Lucis said. "I know a lot of people are judgmental about my skating, but in order for me to be effective, I definitely need my legs and my speed to play the way that I do. To be able to battle through the last three games with a groin injury, I felt like I got better from Tuesday to Thursday to Saturday. Happy with what I was able to do this week."

* Stenberg, Kaskimaki will be full-time players starting next season – Otto Stenberg and Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, playing with Dalibor Dvorsky on Saturday, will almost certainly be full-time NHL players next season.

We’ve talked about Dvorsky enough, and I still think he starts the season in Springfield of the American Hockey League, as will Stenberg and Kaskimaki, but I feel like the latter two have had such impressive camps. They’re good, solid, responsible players who read the game well. And it was on display on Kaskimaki’s goal to open the scoring at 4:04 of the second period to make it 1-0:

Tyler Tucker reads a chance to move the puck in transition to Stenberg, who moved it up the lefthand side before reading a play to slide the puck in stride to Kaskimaki, whose deft redirection didn’t appear to be much but perhaps caught Arvid Soderblom off guard just enough for the puck to squirt through the Blackhawks goalie:

They’re both hard workers, and I think the coaching staff has most certainly taken notice of their work and smart abilities, whether with or without pucks.

Blues coach Jim Montgomery spoke of Stenberg’s camp on Saturday morning.

Neither of them will make the roster out of training camp, but they have each put his stake in the ground, and firmly implanted it in the ground. It won’t be too long. Kaskimaki-Dvorsky-Stenberg will be a solid line in Springfield this year.

* Hunter Skinner will be a good insurance policy – Skinner, acquired in the Vladimir Tarasenko trade Feb. 9, 2023 with the New York Rangers, was quietly having himself a strong camp and nipping at the heels of Matthew Kessel for the seventh defenseman on this squad.

He didn’t do anything to squash his resume in this game either. He had an assist in the game when he funneled a puck towards the goal that Thomas tipped in for a 3-0 lead at 18:10 of the second period and was a plus-2 in 16:53:

But I liked Skinner’s physical nature in this game, and he made a solid defensive play with roughly eight minutes left in the second when he hustled back and broke up a play that started off as a 2-on-1 for Chicago.

Skinner had five shot attempts and three hits but it sure seemed like more than that. He will be one of the first call-ups should the Blues need a defenseman.

As for Kessel, this was his best preseason game, playing a team-high 21:08 with six hits. He was engaged and playing like a player that knew someone was looking for his job. But I thought Kessel did a nice job of breaking up a number of Chicago rushes and moving pucks quickly back out of the zone.

I think he cinched his place on this roster.

* Thomas, Snuggerud are going to make magic – If there was any doubt that two of the Blues' top forwards are already in sync, just watch not only tonight's game but the ones they've played previously. Forget about Snuggerud's ability to shoot, this kid can make plays; we already know Thomas can. But if they can make plays for each other and complement each other, watch out. That's all I'm going to say. And for Pavel Buchnevich, who will start on that line, you better take advantage of the elite playmaking provided by two skilled players.

"It helps when you're playing with such good players," Snuggerud said. "I feel like it's something I've been trying to improve a lot because it's needed in the game of hockey. Being able to work on things like that makes the game more fun."

* Quick hitters – Mailloux, who finished the preseason with four points, will be in the starting lineup on Thursday, undoubtedly. He played 20:52 and was on the penalty kill again, something the Blues want to work with him on and again used his long body and stick to disrupt plays. I think he makes a good option, if needed, as a quarterback power play with his alert play to Thomas that resulted in Stenberg’s goal at 4:24 of the third period that made it 4-0:

Theo Lindstein, who had an assist on the Thomas goal, had his best game of the preseason playing 17:55 with three shots on goal. He will benefit greatly from a full season in Springfield. This is a project that the Blues will be patient with, and I thought Leo Loof asserted himself much better in this game than his last one last Tuesday. He played 18:42 and also had six hits.

That’ll do it for the preseason. The opening night 23-man roster deadline is 4 p.m. (CT) on Monday. It all starts for real on Thursday.

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