Ville Husso gets his first career playoff start tonight.
To the surprise of exactly no one, Jordan Binnington will not be in net tonight against the Minnesota Wild. The backup that lead the Blues to the Stanley Cup will be backing up the goalie who started the year as a clear backup. Husso has moved toward the status of 1B, and – for now – has taken over the starting role. It’s easy to forget that Ville Husso was ahead of Jordan Binnington in organizational depth until injuries caused hiccups, but order has been restored.
In other order restoring moves, Brayden Schenn will be returning to the lineup, which causes Tyler Bozak to slot in at fourth line center. This means that Logan Brown will be joining Dakota Joshua in watching playoff hockey from the pressbox. Marco Scandella is not yet ready to come back, which means that Niko Mikkola will be joining Robert Bortuzzo on the third pairing.
Here are tonight’s lines, from stlblues.com:
Forwards
Saad – O’Reilly – Perron
Buchnevich – Thomas – Tarasenko
Barbashev – Schenn – Kyrou
Toropchenko – Bozak – Walker
Defense
Leddy – Parayko
Krug – Faulk
Mikkola – Bortuzzo
Goalie
Husso
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