Hampered by injury at forward, the Blues have decided to use the negative as a positive by giving highly-touted prospect Ty Rattie his NHL debut tonight against Dallas.
Rattie, the 32nd overall pick at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, has been a dynamic scorer at both the junior and American League levels over the last three years. He put up back-to-back 100-point campaigns for WHL Portland -- 121 points in 2011-12, 110 in 2012-13 -- and this year, his first in the AHL, Rattie leads Chicago with 29 goals and 46 points.
St. Louis is ridiculously shorthanded up front tonight, as injuries have sidelined captain David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Vladimir Tarasenko, Derek Roy, Brenden Morrow and Vladimir Sobotka. Prior to those injuries, having the 21-year-old Rattie debut this year probably wasn’t in the cards -- he only has 69 total games of professional experience -- but it should be exciting to see what the kid can do at the NHL level.
Rattie did play on some extremely talented Portland teams and was ex-teammates with the likes of Ryan Johansen, Nino Niederreiter, Seth Jones, Derrick Pouliot and Sven Baertschi, many of whom have achieved early success in the bigs.