As the St. Louis Blues return home to Enterprise Center on Thursday night to host the Winnipeg Jets for Game 3 of their first-round series (8:30 p.m. CT, FanDuel Sports Network, ESPN2, 101 ESPN), the lineup could have a bit of different look - but we won’t know for sure until puck drop.
“We’ll find out tonight at 8:50,” Head Coach Jim Montgomery said in regards to whether he opts to go again with 11 forwards and seven defensemen, or return to the standard 12 forwards and six defensemen for Game 3.
Montgomery did confirm that Robert Thomas, who missed Wednesday’s practice for maintenance, will play Thursday night.
Other than that, though, he opted to keep his lineup choices close to the vest.
Possible changes include seeing Alexandre Texier back in the lineup for the first time since March 27. Texier has skated the last two days on a line with Oskar Sundqvist and Zack Bolduc.
“He has incredible self-belief and confidence,” Montgomery said of Texier. “He is very, very high-end with the puck. He does things in practice that not a lot of players I’ve seen, that I’ve had the fortune of coaching, be able to do.”
Additionally, it's possible that defenseman Tyler Tucker could take Ryan Suter's spot in the lineup in the third pairing after playing as the seventh defenseman in Game 2.
Montgomery said Tucker was "very underrated at the offensive blue line," which was something he felt "needed to be a little more apparent" from his defense.
Suter has played in 534 consecutive regular-season games (the second-longest active streak in the NHL), and in 135 career playoff games and 16 postseasons.
“It doesn’t matter who you sit at this time of the year," Montgomery said about the possibility of having tough decisions to make with the defense. "Everybody has helped you get to the playoffs… Everybody in that room has helped us get to this point, and the guys that are going to play tonight are the guys that I feel give us the best opportunity to win our first game of the playoffs.”
