There’s a youth movement at play in St. Louis.
Tonight against the Preds, head coach Ken Hitchcock will unveil his version of the ‘Kid Line,’ putting Jaden Schwartz at center between Robby Fabbri and Vladimir Tarasenko.
Tarasenko is 25, Schwartz is 24, Fabbri is 20. What’s more, they’re the Blues’ three leading scorers this year, combining for 33 goals and 67 points.
“It’s a bunch of young guys that are pretty excited to play together,” Hitchcock explained, per the Blues website. “They’re quite frankly playing some of the best hockey they’ve ever played. But I looked at it from a balance standpoint; we need more participants in our game.
“Too much one and done.”
As Hitch alluded to, St. Louis could use a spark.
The club has been inconsistent lately, alternating wins and losses over a six-game stretch. That includes Sunday’s 3-1 defeat in Minnesota, a game in which the Blues only managed to put 23 shots on goal.
“All these games are right there, but we’re not getting a big enough push back against these teams that really check hard,” Hitcock said afterward, per ESPN. “They checked hard. We really checked them hard, but as the game wore they started to get a little bit control of it.”
Today’s line juggling resulted in a second line centered by Paul Stastny, with Alex Steen and David Perron on his wings. The third line has Patrik Berglund in between the slumping Jori Lehtera and Nail Yakupov, who will dress for just the second time this month.
Scottie Upshall, Kyle Brodziak and Ryan Reaves will make up the fourth line.