Andy Murray said this afternoon that the Blues are taking all four goalies on the roster with them on the West Coast trip.
Chris Mason, Chris Holt, Ben Bishop and Manny Legace will make the trip. Murray said that Mason will start Wednesday in Anaheim, and if I had my guess, Holt will be the backup.
It didn’t appear Monday morning that Legace would make the trip, but he was a late afternoon addition. Since suffering the hip/groin injury on Oct. 24, Legace had not been on the ice until today. He went through pre-practice drills, but did not take shots.
“Everything felt good,” Legace said. “I’m going on the trip. I’ll practice and then we’ll see how it goes.”
Legace has missed 10 days, longer than most expected.
“When you’ve got strained muscles, it’s tough,” Murray said. “When you’ve got a broken bone, you can say it’s a certain number of weeks for sure. (But) when it’s a groin or a hip-flexor, different guys deals with it differently. As goaltenders, you’ve got to have full range of movement and we’re being careful with him.”
Bishop (groin) skated alone on Sunday and then took half the reps with Holt in Monday’s team practice.
“It was my second time out, but first practice and it felt good,” Bishop said. “I’ll just practice again tomorrow and see how it feels.”
********
T.J. Oshie (high-ankle sprain) was expected to undergo an MRI today, but I don’t have the results.
Oshie suffered the injury while taking a face-off Saturday against Pittsburgh. After the fight for the puck, the Penguins’ Mike Zigomanis and Oshie get twisted up and Zigomanis falls on Oshie’s leg inadvertantly.
Oshie is not going on the West Coast trip and Murray said that it will be at least next week before Oshie even thinks about skating.
“It’s unfortunate with T.J.,” Murray said. “His absence in our lineup is going to be felt. He was playing very well.”
********
Keith Tkachuk sat out of practice today with a cold.
Here were the offensive lines without Tkachuk:
Yan Stastny (Tkachuk’s fill-in)-Andy McDonald-Brad Boyes
Paul Kariya-Patrick Berglund-David Perron
Lee Stempniak-Jay McClement-David Backes
David Koci-Danny Hinote-Janssen
********
Murray liked the way Berglund played Saturday against Pittsburgh, and his stat line would tell you why. Berglund had one goal (almost two goals) on two shots . . . he was a +1 . . . he had four hits . . . and he had one takeaway. His ice time was 15:42 Saturday, compared to 9:15 against Thursday against Carolina.
“I thought that (the second of Saturday’s game) was the best phase he’s shown this season,” Murray said. “I thought he was harder on the puck, he was tougher to knock off it. His second and third efforts were good. He had been a pretty good first-effort player up to this point in the year, but in this league, you don’t win unless you get second and third efforts. He was deserving of the goal because he had done some things. He’s had two great practices yesterday and today, and I’m hoping he builds off that.”
********
A funny story from practice today:
“At the end of practice,” Murray said, “I had one more drill on the list. It was a bit of a (hard) skating drill. We (already) had a pretty good practice. I asked Alex Pietrangelo in front of the other guys, ‘Alex, I’ve got one more drill on my list . . . do we need to do it or not?’ He said, ‘I think we need to do it.’ Of course all the veterans kind of starred at him after that. So they did a pretty hard skate at the end. He was in a no-win situation because if he says ‘No, we don’t need it . . .’ he sounds like a cocky rookie.”
Murray said he would have ended practice if Pietrangelo said “That’s enough.”
While we’re talking about Pietrangelo, did Murray let the cat out of the bag today while commenting on the rookie defenseman?
When asked if Pietrangelo’s injury was a setback, Murray said: “I think if he hadn’t missed games because of injury, he might be a little bit further ahead. But in reality it gave him a chance to watch some games to learn. As a young guy, he’s NOT GOING TO PLAY EVERY GAME THIS YEAR . . . so the break, I don’t know that it had a real negative impact on his development.”
JR
Hopefully some guys will step up their play with Oshie out of the lineup. I think Mason will start to get back into the flow of starting this road trip. As for Murray and his comment about young guys not going to play every game this year?? I wonder if he’s just talking about Alex, or is he just talking in general about young guys? Interesting stuff to ponder… Thanks JR!
4 goalies now? Who would have predicted that the story of the year was which goalies will be left to play in Alaska and Peoria?! Here’s to maybe Phillys and Marek playing some games at Alaska and Peoria, then hopping on the plane for next weeks games??