Congratulations to Blues goaltender Manny Legace, who was added to the NHL All-Star game  Thursday morning. Legace will split duties on the Western Conference team with  his friend Chris Osgood and San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov.

It will be Legace’s first NHL All-Star game and, meanwhile,  he  will be the  seventh Blues’ goalie to represent the organization at the game. The others were  Glenn Hall, Curtis Joseph, Mike Luit, Jacques Plante, Roman Turek and Ernie Wakely.

Going into the Blues’ game against Dallas, Legace is ranked fifth in the NHL with a 2.06 goals-against average and seventh with a .922 save percentage.

His play of late is definitely deserving of an invitation. On Tuesday,  Legace set the Blues’ record for consecutive shutout minutes with 186 minutes, 15 seconds.

I did some further number crunching on his recent stretch and came up with this: since the Blues’ 5-0 loss to Detroit on Dec. 26, Legace has a 0.46 GAA and a .979 save percentage, stopping 95 of 97 shots.

I  didn’t get a chance to talk to Legace this morning about his inclusion in the All-Star game. He  left Scottrade Center  before  the announcement was made, so I’ll get some comment from him after tonight’s game.

It turns out that Legace will be the only player representing the Blues Jan. 27 in Atlanta at the game.

Brad Boyes (21 goals, 33 points) probably had the best shot, but he did not make it. I’m told that Boyes will be in Erie, PA., during the break to have his number retired by the Erie Otters, where he won an Ontario Hockey League championship.

At one time this season, Boyes was among the Top 5 in goals in the NHL, but his eight-game scoring drought  has pushed him back to 11th.

Keep  in mind, Boyes has scored 21 goals in  six fewer games than Corey Perry (23 goals), five fewer than Eric Staal (23) and four fewer than  Ilya Kovalchuk (35)  and Jarome Iginla (32).

Plus for a guy like Boyes, who is emerging this season, it would have been pretty difficult to crack this Western Conference lineup: Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Jarome Iginla, Jason Arnott, Marian Gaborik, Ryan Getzlaf, Shawn Horcoff, Anze Kopitar, Rick Nash, Henrik Sedin, Paul Stastny and Joe Thornton.

Moving on . . .

The Blues will be without forward Mike Johnson for the remainder of the season. Johnson has a torn labrum in his left shoulder and will have surgery.

Johnson’s injury leaves the Blues with only 12 healthy forwards. Blues coach Andy Murray said there are no current plans to bring up somebody from Peoria.

“I think when we go on an extended road trip, we’ll need to have an extra body” Murray said. “I think it depends what we need . . . the type of player that we need.”

There’s no concrete timetable on when Martin Rucinsky will return from his separated shoulder. On Thursday, Murray called it a “six-week thing.” Rucinsky suffered the injury Dec. 29 at Dallas, so six weeks would put him at the middle of February.

It appears that the Blues will roll out the same lines tonight against Dallas (why not after scoring six goals?).

For those of you who weren’t keeping track, that means:

Kariya-Tkachuk-Mayers (there were some who thought Mayers was the best player on that line Tuesday night).

Perron-McDonald-Boyes

Stempniak-McClement-Backes

King-R. Johnson-Hinote

“I think when we play good, you like the (lines),” Murray said. “I thought the big thing in that game was that our offense was created  because of  our first-touch passes in our zone. We were getting out cleanly and Columbus likes to play an aggressive forecheck. They want to make you spend time in your zone. I thought we did a good job of moving the puck.”

Here’s a stat for you: in the Blues’ first eight games this season, they had 30+ shots in five of those games. In their last 32 games, they’ve have 30-plus shots in only six of them.

Defensive pairings stay the same:

Brewer/Salvador

Jackman/Backman

McKee/Johnson

Legace is in goal.

Walker is the lone healthy scratch.

After beating the Blues 5-4 in a shootout on Dec. 29, the Stars lost four straight games. They have responded with back-to-back wins since then, including Wednesday night’s 3-1 victory in Chicago.

So the Stars will be playing on back-to-back nights, which brings up an unbelievable  tale from this morning’s talk with Murray.

You want to know how detailed this guy is? This won’t help any in the game preparation, but  Murray told reporters that  the Stars  landed at 1:18 a.m. this morning.

Not 1:15 a.m. . . . 1:18 a.m.

JR