GDT #4: Blues vs Kings | 7:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN

[theohall]

TEAM SNAPSHOTS
BLUES The St. Louis Blues returned home from a three-game road trip with a perfect 3-0 record following a 3-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday night. It's the first time in franchise history the Blues have opened a season with three straight road wins.

As of Friday afternoon, the Blues were one of just seven remaining undefeated teams in the League.

On Saturday night, they'll open their 2021-22 home schedule with a matchup with the Los Angeles Kings.

Saturday's game won't feature two of the Blues' biggest offseason acquisitions - Pavel Buchnevich will be serving the second game of his two-game suspension on Saturday, while Brandon Saad will miss the game due to COVID-19 protocols.

KINGS The Los Angeles Kings will travel to St. Louis for two straight games against the Blues.

The Kings won their opening night matchup against the Vegas Golden Knights on Oct. 14 but have lost three straight games since (0-2-1), most recently on Friday night in Dallas, where the Stars earned a 3-2 overtime win.

Los Angeles is looking to get back in the playoffs after missing the postseason in each of the last three seasons. Familiar faces in Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty and Alex Iafallo are joined by new forwards Phillip Danault and Viktor Arvidsson, who joined the team in the offseason. The Kings also added veteran defenseman Alexander Edler to the roster.

Goalie Calvin Peterson is expected to get the bulk of the starts over 35-year-old veteran Jonathan Quick, who played just 22 games last season.

PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES David Perron, who is moving up the franchise scoring list in a variety of categories. Perron's next goal will tie him with Red Berenson (172) for 10th on the all-time goals list. Perron is currently tied with Berenson in assists (240) and is just one point behind Berenson (411).

KINGS Anze Kopitar, who leads the Kings with nine points (six goals, three assists) in four games this season. Kopitar recorded five points in a season-opening 6-2 win against Vegas.

BLUE NOTES
The Blues are 3-1-1 in their last five home openers dating back to 2016... Ryan O'Reilly (two goals, seven assists) and David Perron (four goals, five assists) combined for 18 points against the Kings last season... Jordan Binnington is 2-2-0 with a 2.08 goals-against average and a .926 save-percentage at home against Los Angeles... The Blues are 3-0 to begin the season for just the sixth time in franchise history. The Blues have started the season 4-0 only twice (2013-14 and 2017-18).

The St. Louis Blues will stage their home opener against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday without their two key offseason acquisitions.

Winger Pavel Buchnevich will conclude his two-game NHL suspension for a head-butting incident, and winger Brandon Saad landed on the COVID-19 shelf after a positive test.

"It's tough," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "They're good players for us. We all know that, and it's unfortunate what happened to Saad."

Meanwhile, the Kings will play without cornerstone defenseman Drew Doughty, who sustained a lower-body injury in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars on Friday night.

Doughty had to be helped off the ice after taking a leg-to-leg hit from Stars defenseman Jani Hakanpaa. Kings coach Todd McLellan said Doughty would be evaluated again Saturday.

"There's a game that needs to be played, but obviously you don't want to see him go down," Kings captain Anze Kopitar said. "It doesn't matter who it is, it's a teammate, and if somebody goes down, it's not a good feeling. Hopefully it's nothing too serious."

Buchnevich, who had a goal and an assist in the Blues' first two games, arrived in an offseason trade with the New York Rangers. Saad, who has a goal and an assist in three games, signed as a free agent.

Berube will try rookie Klim Kostin in Saad's spot on the line with Ryan O'Reilly and David Perron.

"He's creating opportunities offensively and I think he's been doing a good job defensively, being in the right spots and getting back and tracking back and things like that so, we'll see," Berube said of Kostin.

St. Louis winger Kyle Clifford will make his season debut on Saturday after sitting out the first three games as a healthy scratch.

The Blues swept their three-game road trip to open the season, defeating the Colorado Avalanche, Arizona Coyotes and Vegas Golden Knights by the combined score of 15-8.

Jordan Binnington (3-0-0, 2.67 goals-against average) has settled in as the lead goaltender again, and Jordan Kyrou (two goals, five assists) has paced the offense.

The Kings won their opener before dropping the next three games. Their top line of Kopitar (six goals, including one Friday) centering Dustin Brown (four points) and Viktor Arvidsson (three points) has excelled.

However, McLellan is looking for more offensive balance from his front lines.

"From a defensive perspective thus far, OK. From an offensive perspective, we have about half the team that's clicking and half that's finding their way," he said Friday. "Usually, that's not enough offensively."

Goaltender Jonathan Quick started Friday, so the Kings are likely to come back with Calvin Peterson (1-1-0, 2.04 GAA) against the Blues.

The two teams will play again Monday in St. Louis.

The St. Louis Blues host the Los Angeles Kings.

St. Louis went 27-20-9 overall with a 12-11-5 record at home during the 2020-21 season. Goalies for the Blues recorded one shutout last season while compiling a .900 save percentage.

Los Angeles went 21-28-7 overall a season ago while going 12-14-2 on the road. Goalies for the Kings recorded two shutouts last season while compiling a .903 save percentage.

The matchup Saturday is the first meeting of the season between the two teams.

INJURIES: Blues: Brandon Saad: day to day (health protocols).

Kings: Brendan Lemieux: day to day (covid-19).

[glen a richter]

Keep it going, LA played last night so take advantage of some tired legs.

Blues 3 - Kyrou, Clifford , Thomas
Kings 1

[glen a richter]

Looking good, Neighbours with his first NHL goal.

[glen a richter]

This team, so far, has the most exciting offense they've had in years. Goddam, keep it rolling boys!

[theohall]

And tonight was without Saad and Buchnevich. The way Kostin is playing, Clifford is going to turn into a perma-scratch when those two return.

[glen a richter]

Assuming the current trajectory holds--and obviously I know they'll lose eventually and bad games will be had by some here and there--I will be monumentally pissed if Neighbours gets sent back after his 9 games are up. This kid plays like he's already been in the league a couple of years and going back to juniors will do absolutely nothing for him.

[theohall]

Blues are 2nd in the league in shot attempts/game and 6th in shots on goal per game, and 1st in the NHL in Shot %. Can't say I've ever seen that from a Blues team, ever. This is a different team playing with a different mentality than I've seen before in terms of a concerted effort to actually get shots on goal, even if they aren't high quality shots. Not even in the Cup year was the team shooting like this.

Some other stuff. Krug is only killing penalties if a Blues d-man took a penalty. He's taking only about 25% of d-zone draws. If it's d-zone draw and Parayko (73%)/Scandella (80%) didn't just finish a shift, they are on the ice for that d-zone draw. What's really impressive about d-zone starts - ROR (74%)/Perron (73%) and Perron still has 7 points in 4 games.

Another thing that looks really impressive is the Blues shift times. Only 2 players are above 45 second average shifts, Parayko at 47 seconds and Clifford at 56 seconds, but Clifford is a complete outlier with only the one game played. Blues bench is doing great at managing the entire team's ice time, while still leaning on ROR, Parayko, and Scandella for most d-zone situations. Not sure Perunovich would provide the same defensive punch at this point, but would love to see him replace Walman whose barely playing for a defenseman.

Why replace Walman with Perunovich? Moving the puck up ice and shooting. Of players who have shot attempts, Walman has the worst Thru% (16%). Pretty sure this wouldn't be the case with Perunovich on the team and as good as the Blues have been, imagine a 3rd defensive pairing whose more effective at moving the puck up ice and generating chances on net. The negative to this is size, but if your going to rely on Parayko/Scandella and occasionally on the 3rd pairing to protect Krug from d-zone draws, might as well add some offensive punch to it. Nothing against Walman, since he's "steady", but that's all he is... steady. Don't expect much more from him than we are already seeing.