Saturday's game gives the Hawks one more day to see and observe some of the new chemistry pairings Luke Richardson has seen in training camp thus far. He highlighted forwards Andreas Athanasiou and Sam Lafferty as a partnership he wants to see together against the Blues.
"I've actually looked at those two names right from the first day of camp," said Richardson. "I think that speed could be really dominating out there. So I'm anxious to see what comes of that."
For leadership in the crease, Petr Mrazek counts on elevating to that role on the team. The Hawks brought the 30-year-old goalie to be the top netminder. Mrazek prepared this summer to carry the workload by stepping up his training regimen.
"I changed a lot of things," said Mrazek. "[Training] with physical therapists, I had never done that before in the summer. Every single day from Monday to Friday, we talked about what was wrong with my groin [muscles]. I felt like I wasn't stretchy as I was before, so we worked on that a lot."
The game against the Blues - originally scheduled for 7:00 pm - moved up to 2:00 pm.
"It's great," Richardson said on the move to an earlier start. "They get to come home and just have a normal night, have dinner and relax. We're leaving a day early for [the season opener next week in] Colorado, so we'll be back on the road shortly. It'd be nice just to get that extra meal and to sleep in your own bed."
