ST. LOUIS, MO - The Oilers face the St. Louis Blues the morning after their trade of defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk to Washington last night. That means the Blues are without a top offensive weapon from the backend. Shattenkirk had 42 points, including 11 goals, this season.
"He's a good defenceman, but I don't think we change anything," said Oilers winger Zack Kassian. "Obviously, he's a dangerous guy that was an offensive guy on the blueline for them, but they're still a good hockey team over there and we're going to need our best effort to beat them."
The Oilers beat the Blues 3-1 on October 20, and also won 3-2 in overtime in St. Louis on December 19.
"We haven't turned many pucks over when we've played them this year," said Kassian. "We get behind them and use our big bodies, cycle pucks and get pucks to the net. We've been fortunate enough that a lot of pucks have been going in against the Blues. That's going to be a tough task tonight. They've been playing well. We're looking forward to it."
Edmonton has won three straight in St. Louis since dropping the previous eight.
"I think this team, compared to previous years, we are bigger and stronger," said Oilers winger Jordan Eberle. "In the past, these guys kind of pushed us around and it's been kind of the opposite this year."
END ON HIGH NOTE
If the Blues are singing the blues by the end of the night, it would mean a successful end to the longest trip of the season for Edmonton. The Oil have a chance to put their trip win total at three.
"There are no excuses. We're rested. We had a day off yesterday and we've gotten plenty of days off," said Kassian. "We've been away from home for a while now, but every team goes through that. We've had some ups and downs but we want to finish this trip on a high note."
Eberle says teams tend to give a strong effort in the final game of a trip.
"Tonight I think we'll have that," he said. "We had the day off yesterday to rest and we'll definitely be mentally and physically ready to go here."
LINEUP CHANGES
The Oilers will mix things up tonight in St. Louis, as rookies Drake Caggiula and Matt Benning will be scratched.
"We've got to get some other bodies going and we haven't won enough games yet," Head Coach Todd McLellan explained. "Drake hasn't produced at the level we need him to produce. He has had many opportunities, but he hasn't finished. It's been a long time since he's had an opportunity to watch the game from up top and maybe that will help him a little bit with understanding the space and time he may or may not have on the ice surface, and Matt Benning had a bit of a tough night the other day in Nashville and we'd like to add a strong penalty killer into the mix with Grybs. Simple as that."
Eric Gryba and Anton Slepyshev will take those spots.
-- Chris Wescott, edmontonoilers.com
