ST. LOUIS – Otto Stenberg and Aleksanteri Kaskimaki will each make his season debut when the St. Louis Blues (3-4-1) open a five-game homestand against another Central Division opponent, the Winnipeg Jets (4-2-2), at 7 p.m. (Blue Note+, ESPN 101.1-FM), and in doing so, Blues coach Jim Montgomery wants the two that had gotten off to good starts in Springfield of the American Hockey League to not play cautious.
“I’d like to see them more aggressive and not play safe, trust their instincts,” Montgomery said. “They’re very smart hockey players, trust their instincts and the fact that … I don’t want to say that they’re defensive-first players because they play a 200-foot game, but they always reload, they always do the right thing without the puck, so you can have a little more risk offensively, especially when you’re smart players because you’re usually making good reads. So I’d like them to anticipate offense a little quicker so that their offense can show.”
Kaskimaki, who had a five-game stint with the Blues last season, had seven points (two goals, five assists) in six games for the Thunderbirds this season, both goals shorthanded and both assisted by Stenberg, and it is pretty much a carryover from the days of a really strong training camp here in St. Louis.
“The games went well down in Springfield,” Kaskimaki said. “I had good chemistry going with linemates, they helped me a lot. You just continue there from the (training) camp.
“I’m more experienced now. I had a good summer and good start to the season. That helped me. That’s the goal, bring the offense. Play to our strengths.
“Just play to my strengths and play with confidence. Those are the things we talked about and try to bring that.”
Stenberg struggled during training camp and was a bit of a disappointment to have to go down to Springfield but put his head down and had a goal and three assists in his Springfield stint.
He’s always given the coaching staff to trust him away from the puck and being responsible defensively.
“You want to be here. I was super-happy when (assistant GM Ryan Miller) called me,” said Stenberg, who found out after attending the New York Jets at New England Patriots football game Sunday. “Obviously you want to stay up here. It was really disappointing when you got sent down, but I think I handled it pretty good. I went down there, worked hard and had a good start.
“I got a lot of help from ‘Otter’ (Springfield coach Steve Ott) down there. I played with confidence and played a lot with the puck. It was fun.”
So what does that need to translate into?
“Try and make more plays like last year,” Stenberg said of his 32 games he played in the NHL a year ago (three goals, seven assists). “Play a little bit more simple and not turn pucks over. Just play a little bit more simpler and if you turn the puck over, have a little bit more back-check. That helped a lot and it just helped that I could play with the puck. I had a lot of ice time. It was nice.”
What should help is that they get to play wings with as reliable a center as they can play with in veteran Pius Suter.
“I think the best way he can help is … he’s Swiss, and everybody knows that in Scandinavia, the Swedes and the Finns hate each other, so he’s neutral and he gets them all thinking as one,” Montgomery joked. “The white flag, he’s the white flag.
“In all seriousness, I think his smarts, he’s comforting, he’s calm, he speaks calmly, he speaks confidently. I think he gives young players confidence that everything is going to be good.”
Montgomery calls Kaskimaki and Stenberg, “guys that are 200-foot conscious players that are really intelligent, make great support plays offensively and defensively and adds to our penalty-killing depth.
“(Stenberg is an) extremely reliable player. Very trustworthy. He’s making great reads offensively and defensively that usually lead to positive outcomes for the shift and the team.
“I’d like them to be more direct offensively, a little more aggressive, both of them. From what I’ve seen from Kaskimaki in camp and today’s practice is he’s become a lot more direct offensively, and he’s creating a lot more now. He might have been our leading point-getter in preseason, I don’t know. He made a lot of plays and a lot of plays. They’re elite plays, but they’re simple plays within how we want to play, and he gets that part. I think Stenberg gets it too.
“Steve Ott and the staff down in Springfield’s done a terrific job with those players. We’ve seen it already with (Dylan Peterson). The players come up, they’re well-prepared and it’s also they’re used to being up for both of them. It’s either a second or third time up. I’m specifically talking about Kaskimaki and Stenberg.”
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It’s another sibling rivalry matchup for the Blues on Tuesday, and this time, it involves the Barron Brothers.
Blues defenseman Justin Barron and Jets center Morgan Barron will square off against each other for the eighth time in their respective careers, first in the Blues-Jets rivalry, which makes it a storyline.
“It’s always fun,” Justin said. “I feel like the last couple times, our lines have been matched up against each other too, which has been pretty funny.”
And how did those work out? Did you have a chance to line him up and check him?
“No, I haven’t got the chance to line him up yet,” Justin said. “He’s got the size advantage a little bit, so I’ve got to pick my spots. It’s obviously really fun to play against him. The Jets are off to a hot start this year, so we’re going to have a good challenge tonight.”
The 24-year-old Justin Barron is 6-foot-2, 198 pounds; older brother Morgan Barron, 27, comes in 6-4, 220.
“It’s kind of funny,” Morgan said. “It’s a little different playing against him. I’m always pulling for him and then all of a sudden, you’re fighting in the corner for a puck. It’s no different than in the summer or playing mini sticks in the basement and all of that stuff. We’ve done it for a long time now. Yeah, it’s always kind of fun getting a chance to play against him in the NHL. It’s pretty cool.”
What’s great is that like any brothers, they pull for each other, talk to each other and properly critique each other’s games for the betterment of their growth.
“Yeah, 100 percent,” Justin said. “I pretty much always try to watch their games as long as we’re not playing on the same nights. We’re pretty much talking every day, if not every second day. It’s a lot of hockey talk during the season, but it’s a little bit of everything. Whatever is going on in the world right now.
“… He was always someone I looked up to growing up. It’s a core relationship we’ve had and it’s been special.”
Morgan agreed.
“I kind of felt like I was chasing his career there for a while,” he said. ‘He played at home for the junior team, was a high (draft) pick and he still lives with me in the summer, so I spend a lot of time with him and we’re still kind of able to push each other. We spend a lot of time together. It’s good to have someone like that. It’s a blessing that not many people have, to have someone in your corner that is rooting for you. If I’m down, I can always talk to him about it. We have shared experiences.”
Morgan was glad to see baby brother get an opportunity in St. Louis after being waived by the Nashville Predators on Sept. 26.
“Absolutely,” Morgan said. ‘It’s been good for him to get a fresh start and to get the chance to go to another good young team. Obviously, it’s been fun for me to watch. You watch games around the league but you pay closer attention and I always try to catch his games. I feel like he’s been playing great and is kind of running with an opportunity here with a young team. It’s been fun to watch.”
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The start to the season wasn’t what the Blues had hoped for. They have dropped two straight, as have the Jets, and need to have themselves a homestand here.
“It’s important,” Montgomery said. “We wanted to be over .500 after our first eight games with six on the road. It didn’t happen, but it’s the grind of the NHL. We need to be better in our division. We have Winnipeg here (tonight), starting at home where we’re 1-0-1 and our players have juice. We have juice in the legs when we come home and play in front of Blues fans. We’re excited about (tonight) and the four games that follow against really good hockey teams coming in here.
“… I thought practice (Monday) was excellent. I thought they pushed each other to get better, they competed harder, there were some guys that were pissed off because of how hard they were checked. That’s a good thing. That’s what you need with a young group. We didn’t play well in Minnesota and we didn’t play well enough in Nashville to get points and this league is a grind, so it’s getting back on the grind and relishing the opportunity to get better and carry that into (tonight).”
Blues forward Jake Neighbours said the pushing each other is not only needed once in a while but all the time.
“You need them all the time,” he said. “Especially in this league, there’s not a lot of time to practice. There’s especially not a lot of time to practice hard. I think an opportunity like this after a day off is a good opportunity for that and I thought the guys did that. It pushes us each to be better, brings an expectation every day that practice is going to be intense and high-pace today and I thought it was today.
“Obviously it’s important. Any time you get a good stretch of games at home, you want to take advantage of it, but our focus, we talked about it today, it’s just one game at a time. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and get too excited about playing five at home. It’s one at a time, we haven’t been good in our division so far and we’ve got another divisional game (today) so we’re focused on that.”
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What can help the Blues is building off of scoring first. They’ve done it six of their eight games, yet are 2-3-1 in those games.
“Maintain momentum. Understand the importance of shift after a goal,” Montgomery said. “We’re up 1-0 to be quite honest in Nashville, we could have been easily up 2-0. Then we take a penalty and it’s debatable whether that’s a penalty or not, but what’s not debatable is we don’t gain momentum back into the game, and that’s on us to be able to maintain momentum, push through any kind of adversity because there’s momentum swings in every sport within every game.”
“I think just staying aggressive,” Neighbours said. “A lot of the reasons we get leads is we come out aggressive and we’re on our toes, our D are pinching walls, our forwards are reloading. Everything’s really connected. I think when we do that, we’re connected and it’s just five-men connected all over the ice. When you’re doing that, it’s really hard to play against. I think sometimes when we get up, we have the tendency to start giving the other team the puck back too much, trying to pull out a little too much maybe at times, worrying about giving up odd-man rushes or whatever it is, but for me when we’re at our best, we’re on top of guys, we’re tight all over the ice and I think doing that for 60 minutes will give us more success.”
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Alexey Toropchenko, who has an upper-body injury, skated in practice on Monday for the first time and was on the ice again Tuesday.
Since being injured Oct. 2 against the Dallas Stars, his initial prognosis was to be re-evaluated in six weeks.
“Great news,” Montgomery said. “Right now, he feels ahead of schedule. Now he’s got a doctor’s appointment later this week and we’ll find out more about when he’ll be able to be plugged back in the lineup.”
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Blues Projected Lineup:
Dylan Holloway-Robert Thomas-Jimmy Snuggerud
Connor McMichael-Mason McTavish-Jonatan Berggren
Jake Neighbours-Dalibor Dvorsky-Pavel Buchnevich
Aleksanteri Kaskimaki-Pius Suter-Otto Stenberg
Philip Broberg-Justin Barron
Adam Jiricek-Colton Parayko
Cam Fowler-Brandon Carlo
Joel Hofer will start in goal; Jordan Binnington will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Theo Lindstein, Zach Dean and Dylan Peterson. Logan Mailloux (hand), Tyler Tucker (knee), Alexey Toropchenko (upper body), Dillon Dube (neck) and Ross Johnston (lower body) are out.
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Jets Projected Lineup:
Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Cole Perfetti
Alex Iafallo-Viggo Bjorck-Gabriel Vilardi
Nino Niederreiter-Adam Lowry-Isak Rosen
Cole Koepke-Morgan Barron-Brad Lambert
Dylan Samberg-Neal Pionk
Mario Ferraro-Dylan DeMelo
Haydn Fleury-Tyrel Bauer
Stuart Skinner will start in goal; Clay Stevenson will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Brayden Yager and Jack St. Ivany. Elias Salomonsson (shoulder), Walker Duehr (lower body), Garrett Brown (lower body), Josh Morrissey (upper body) and Vladislav Namestnikov (undisclosed) are out.
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