Things just keep getting better for St. Louis.
Having already taken a commanding 3-0 series lead on Minnesota, the Blues could have a huge lineup piece back for tomorrow’s potential series clincher, as Paul Stastny returned to practice on Tuesday.
It’s the first time Stastny has skated with teammates in nearly a month. He suffered a lower-body injury on Mar. 21 and has been out ever since, missing 10 regular-season contests and all three postseason tilts against the Wild.
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“I thought he was skating well,” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said after practice, per NHL.com. “He was involved in every drill and certainly conditioning didn’t look like it was an issue.
“Timing and execution didn’t look like it was an issue either.”
Yeo was mum on Stastny’s availability for Game 4, re-iterating the center was day-to-day.
But there’s no denying he’d love to have Stastny back in the lineup.
“He’s usually the first guy over the boards for a power-play faceoff or the first guy over the boards for a penalty-kill faceoff, and those are key,” Yeo said at the time of the injury, per the Blues website. “He’s a very important player for us. You don’t take out a top-line center from too many lineups where they don’t feel that.”
Limited to just 66 games this season, Stastny still managed to score 18 goals and 40 points. He also averaged a healthy 19:08 TOI per night.