Blues gameday: Blues looking to recreate one of the best games this season vs. Edmonton

St. Louis Blues players celebrate a goal by teammate Torey Krug against the Edmonton Oilers during first-period NHL hockey game action in Edmonton, Alberta, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

JASON FRANSON

EDMONTON, ALBERTA — Back on Oct. 22, in the third game of the season for the Blues, they came to Edmonton and beat the Oilers 2-0, with an early power-play goal from Torey Krug and then an empty-net goal from Justin Faulk.

It may still be the best all-around game the Blues have played this season. The Blues will need it again when they face Edmonton on Thursday night at Rogers Place.

“Anytime you keep a team like this to zero goals is huge,” said forward Noel Acciari. “I think we know we have it in the room and want to go into tonight, those guys are on fire right now and we want to contain them and keep them off the scoreboard.”

“It was a good game,” coach Craig Berube said. “I think we did a good job of playing the game the right way, being on the right side of things. Puck play was really good, smart plays, we had our looks offensively, but it was a low-scoring game. When you’re playing these guys, you got to make sure on the right side of things.”

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“We did defend well,” center Ryan O’Reilly said. “That was one of our best defensive games, we just had a mindset of just checking. We checked for 60 minutes, which we haven’t done a lot of this year. You look at our last game, Nashville, we checked very well, but anytime we’re keeping a team with this amount of firepower, keeping them away from Grade A’s and scoring opportunities and goals, you’re going to put yourself in a good spot and that’s the Blues hockey that we’ve seen for years and years and that’s kind of what we want to establish more and do a lot more of.”

Edmonton comes into the game having won three of the past four and scored five or more goals in the three wins. The one loss was a 2-1 defeat by Minnesota.

One difference between then and now is that the Oilers have put their two biggest scoring threats, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, together on the same line.

“It’s a dangerous line for sure when they’re together like that,” Berube said, being cautious about any defensive moves the team might make. “There’s a couple things that I’m thinking about, what I might do.”

“Getting a bump when we can,” Acciari said, “just slowing them down and if one guy gets beat, have that next layer to help out that guy and try to keep them to the outside. They’re good with the puck and we’ve got to be tight as a group.”

The teams also played on Oct. 26 at Enterprise Center, with the Oilers winning 3-1.

“I thought both of the games were tight checking affairs,” said Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft. “Both of those games were so early in the season, I thought they were pretty well played games for that early in the season. I can’t speak to their team, but we expect a really experienced and hard-working St. Louis Blues team tonight.”

Brown goes on rehab assignment

The Blues have sent forward Logan Brown out to Springfield on a rehab assignment. He hasn’t played since Nov. 8 at Philadelphia when he left the game in the second period. He resumed skating on Wednesday. Springfield has two games this weekend, Friday at Syracuse and Saturday at Utica.

Brown can gone up to two weeks, and with Christmas falling in that time, he probably wouldn’t be back with the Blues until Dec. 29 vs. Chicago or Dec. 31 vs. Minnesota.

“I think going down and playing some games for sure is gonna help,” Berube said. “He needs the game action, so that will help him be more prepared when he’s ready to go up here.”

Head count

Acciari was back with the team after missing practice on Wednesday and Pavel Buchnevich will return to the lineup after missing four games with a lower body injury.

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