binnington_kings_projected

The race for the Wild Card in the Western Conference is heating up, and with nine games left, the St. Louis Blues have put themselves firmly in the race.

As of Wednesday morning, the Blues (73 points) were just four points back of the Nashville Predators - who hold the final Wild Card spot in the West - with 77 points. 

St. Louis also has a game in hand on Nashville.

Blues Head Coach Jim Montgomery will not make any changes to his forward lines or defense pairings for Wednesday's matchup in Los Angeles (8 p.m. CT, FanDuel Sports Network, 101 ESPN). 

"The lineup is the same. I've talked to the five guys that haven't played (lately)," Montgomery said of Oskar Sundqvist, Jonathan Drouin, Nathan Walker, Tyler Tucker and Matthew Kessel.  "(I told them) keep being great teammates. They're working hard, they're staying in shape, they have to for when we call upon them. You know we're going to call upon them sooner or later. If we don't have success again tonight, there are going to be changes."

Montgomery said alternating goalies was the plan for the first three games of the road trip, so Jordan Binnington will start in goal.

PROJECTED LINEUP

Forwards

Dylan Holloway - Robert Thomas - Jimmy Snuggerud
Jake Neighbours - Pavel Buchnevich - Jordan Kyrou
Otto Stenberg - Dalibor Dvorsky - Jonatan Berggren
Alexey Toropchenko - Jack Finley - Pius Suter

Defense

Philip Broberg - Logan Mailloux
Theo Lindstein - Colton Parayko
Cam Fowler - Justin Holl

Goalie

Jordan Binnington