Blues goalie Chris Mason returned to practice Monday about 10 days after his emergency Appendectomy. And it appears that Mason will be the starter Thursday against Carolina.

With the rash of goalie injuries, I bring you the “Daily Blues Goalie Injury Update” . . .

Mason (Appendectomy): Practiced with assistant coach Rick Wamsley for more than an hour Sunday, taking shots for the first time in nearly two weeks. He practiced with the team today and felt great. Said he will be available Thursday against Carolina.

Manny Legace (hip): Didn’t practice today, but said he felt much better and may try to practice Tuesday. If all goes well, he will probably back up Mason Thursday.

Ben Bishop (lower body): Didn’t practice today, but said he feels better. He was disappointed not to finish the game Saturday, but said that several Blues players told him when he was leaving the game ”it’s October, do the precautionary thing.” Will wait till Tuesday morning to decide if he’s going to practice Tuesday.

As far as Thursday’s starter, Blues coach Andy Murray said: “I think at this point, with the fact that Chris has been taking the routine in practice and has been facing a lot of shots, he’s probably the guy that would play on Thursday.

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The Blues had their Halloween party Sunday night. That always means two things:

1) They had fun.

2) Murray planned to wake them up with a tough skating practice Monday. The Blues did a lot drills in which the losing team found itself doing a lot of sprints.

“The team had their Halloween get-together last night, so today . . . we made sure that they were competitive drills where they were forced to work,” Murray said. ”There was a competitive edge. You could here Paul Kariya yapping the whole time. He’s supposed to be the this shy, quiet guy from the University of Maine, yet he was doing a lot of the talking out there today.”

Kariya, in fact, drew an playful upsportsmanlike conduct in practice and was forced to do extra sprints.

“Paul was warned a couple of times about his extra talking out there,” Murray said, smiling. ”The coach decided to make him skate extra at the end because I was tired of his talk.”

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Defensemen Jonas Junland and Jeff Woywitka both played Saturday and Sunday in Peoria. Murray attended yesterday’s game and said both players looked good.

On what impressed him about Junland, Murray said: “I think what we say in Traverse City and in the exhibition game that he played, and in training camp, he’s smart and he reads the play well and moves it well.”

On Woywitka, Murray said: “The same thing (as Junland). He’s a good skater. He was jumping up with the play in Peoria. He was pretty solid.”

Here’s more about Woywitka from Peoria Rivermen beatwriter Dave Eminien from his blog . . .

http://www2.pjstar.com/index.php?/eminian/article/woywitka_returns_and_rivermen_blueline_is_good/

Murray also liked the play of Peoria defenseman Tyson Strachan.

Regarding whether any of the defensemen will be called up for Thursday’s game, Murray said the Blues will have to determine if “we want somebody else to not play. We’re not there yet. I think there’s some guys that are in a bit of a gray area, and they need to get themselves out of that area. But they’re not to the point where, as of Monday looking at a game Thursday, we’ve made that decision.”

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Alex Pietrangelo may return to practice Tuesday. Pietrangelo said today that he feels good overall, but his leg and neck are still sore from the boarding hit in Toronto.

“It’s more like leg and my neck,” Pietrangelo said. “I’ve got some stiffness in my neck and my knee is still a bit sore. I did everything I could this morning (in a testing session with the Blues trainer) and we’ll go from there. My plan is to skate tomorrow. It’s kind of nice to be working out and getting back in the swing of things.”

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I’d have to see the game film again from Saturday, but Cam Janssen drew at least four minor penalties against Florida.

“Cam is an agitating, hard-nosed player,” Murray said. “He’s a tough guy to play against and that’s the way we want him to play. He obviously can stand up for himself and fight if it’s necessary. But to me, when he’s going damage out there on the other team’s defensemen, he’s being effective. That’s why (the Panthers) were coming after us.”

JR