ST. LOUIS -- Thursday at Scottrade Center will see the St. Louis Blues open the season against the visiting Nashville Predators.

Predators defenseman Seth Jones will celebrate his 19th birthday by making his NHL debut. The fourth pick of the 2013 NHL Draft, it's expected he'll be on the second defense pair, alongside Mattias Ekholm.

The Blues lineup is a bit of a question, as immigration issues could keep Brenden Morrow from making his debut with the team. If Morrow receives his work visa in time, he could start at left wing on the second line. If he can't go, Magnus Paajarvi could be in that spot.

Here are the lineups each team could use Thursday:

ST. LOUIS -- For Nashville Predators defenseman Seth Jones, the best birthday present will come Thursday, when he steps onto the ice in an NHL game for the first time.

Jones, who turned 19 Thursday, will be in the lineup for the Predators, who open the season against the St. Louis Blues.

The No. 4 pick of the 2013 NHL Draft, who will skate alongside Mattias Ekholm, said he has envisioned this day since walking up to the podium on draft day.

"Yeah, a little bit," Jones said Thursday. "I feel really good though. It's obviously a great thing that I'm here. I'm looking to move forward every day, and it starts today.

"I know [the NHL] is going to be very intense. I got a taste in preseason and I know it's coming a little bit. You don't really know until you get out there."

DALLAS -- There will be a number of notable debuts on both sides as the Florida Panthers visit the Dallas Stars on Thursday.

Florida will have Tim Thomas in net; it will be the first regular-season NHL game for the 39-year-old two-time Vezina Trophy winner since April 7, 2012.

Thomas was a member of the Boston Bruins then, and his team played the Buffalo Sabres, who at the time were coached by Lindy Ruff. Thomas will see Ruff again as the coach makes his regular-season debut behind the bench with the Dallas Stars.

Here are the projected lineups for both teams:

Oates said he felt no need to change things, "Because it [Tuesday] was a winnable game. One game is not a fair evaluation, so give the guys another chance."

After he made those comments, he was forced to make one change. To make room on the roster for defenseman Alexander Urbom, who was claimed off waivers from the New Jersey Devils on Thursday, fourth-line center Michael Latta was sent to Hershey of the American Hockey League. That likely means Jay Beagle will make his season debut, skating on the fourth line between Martin Erat and Tom Wilson.

PITTSBURGH -- New Jersey Devils forward Patrik Elias is expected to skate Thursday against the Pittsburgh Penguins despite a groin injury, while Penguins forward James Neal is a game-time decision with an upper-body injury.

The Devils cleared a roster spot to activate Elias by placing defenseman Alexander Urbom on waivers Wednesday; he was claimed Thursday by the Washington Capitals.

Neal skated briefly at practice Wednesday, but left the ice when he decided he wasn't well enough to continue.

BOSTON -- It's finally time for the Boston Bruins to unleash their much-hyped offseason acquisitions Thursday, as the Bruins will host the Tampa Bay Lightning at TD Garden in the season opener for both clubs.

Loui Eriksson and Jarome Iginla are scheduled to make their debuts with Boston and play on the lines they were projected to skate with in the summer, and played with all through training camp. Eriksson will line up with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, while Iginla will skate with David Krejci and Milan Lucic. Bruins coach Claude Julien said Krejci, who recently missed time with back spasms, will be in against the Lightning.

It'll be important for the Bruins' new top two lines to forge early chemistry.

"I think we feel pretty good out there," Eriksson said after the Bruins' morning skate. "We've been having lot of practices together and we played a few [preseason] games together too. So I think everyone is excited to get going here and start playing."

Jim Ibister is the Vice President of Facility Administration for the Minnesota Wild and General Manager of the Saint Paul RiverCentre.

Seemingly, one of the misconceptions of sustainability programs is that they are all about resource conservation. While conservation is an important outcome of the Minnesota Wild/Xcel Energy Center’s sustainability program, it is certainly not the only one. We take a more holistic view of this program, including a focus on improving operational efficiencies in people and processes.

Creating and maintaining a successful sustainability program requires, among other things, a strong grasp of data. First, and perhaps most importantly, the staff needed to know their starting point. The Minnesota Wild partnered with consultant Progressive Associates to not only shepherd a successful campaign but to help us better understand who we were and how we operated.

The data Progressive gathered created a snapshot of the past and allowed the team to create a vision of the future. It helped to answer staff questions about why they were being asked to change their current practices. With the resulting buy-in came teamwork and with ongoing teamwork came repeatable and long-lasting change.

Good data also allowed us to ask and answer ongoing operational questions. Our team at the Xcel Energy Center developed a program that not only tracked monthly energy consumption and invoices, but also collected data in much smaller increments. This enabled important situational analysis, to answer questions such as: “Why is there a spike of electrical usage during these hours? What happened here that we see heating usage when we should be cooling?”

Now, in cooperation with the NHL and through application software developed by OSIsoft, the Wild’s Ice Operations team is taking this effort one step further. They are developing a program that will produce real-time data on what is happening to the ice as temperatures and conditions change in the arena. This live data, through monitors at the ice level, will give the ice team a head start in reacting to changes that might adversely affect the quality of ice. And while most of this data has always existed, it will now be presented in a consolidated way, overlaid with personal feedback and qualitative analysis. Nothing is more important to the Wild’s ice operations team than continuing to stay at the top of the pack in terms of ice quality.

These exciting developments are born out of a great side effect of a successful sustainability program: understanding who you are and how you work.

As teams and facilities strive to be more responsible in their use of natural resources, it is equally important to operate efficiently and with the excellence associated with the entire NHL.

View Xcel Energy Center's Sustainability Progress Reports.

The Washington Capitals on Thursday claimed defenseman Alexander Urbom off waivers from the New Jersey Devils.

Urbom, 22, played one game for the Devils last season, and had eight assists in 68 games with the club's American Hockey League affiliate, the Albany Devils.

A 2009 third-round pick (No. 73), Urbom had two goals in 14 games with the Devils, spread across the past three seasons.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Washington Capitals' vaunted power play picked up where it left off during a 6-4 season-opening loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday.

The League's most proficient unit last season scored three goals on six opportunities (though they failed to convert on a nearly 90-second two-man advantage in the waning moments of regulation), immediately establishing themselves once again as a force to be reckoned with.

Two of Washington's power-play goals came in nearly identical fashion in the third period as Mikhail Grabovski deflected two Mike Green shots from the point past Corey Crawford to complete his first NHL hat trick.

Interestingly enough, while Grabovski's second and third goals gave the Capitals a 4-3 lead, according to right wing Troy Brouwer, the 29-year-old was out of position on one of his two power-play goals.

There's no question that rookie Nathan MacKinnon and new coach Patrick Roy stole the spotlight in their sparkling debuts for the Colorado Avalanche, but Wednesday's 6-1 rout of the Anaheim Ducks also made it clear Steve Downie can be an asset to both his team and fantasy owners.

Operating on the team's top line with Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly, Downie kicked off the season with a Gordie Howe hat trick (one goal, one assist, five PIMs), with both of his points coming on the power play. He also added four shots on goal and two hits in the win.

Colorado's depth up front, showcased by NHL.com leading up to the season with a League-leading nine forwards in its top 300 fantasy player pool, was evident all night long in a virtuoso offensive display. It was merely one game, but four of Downie's teammates -- MacKinnon, O'Reilly, Jamie McGinn and Alex Tanguay -- joined him in recording multi-point games on opening night.