(9-19-26) Stars-Blues Preseason Gameday Lineup

MARYLANDHEIGHTS, Mo. — It’s go time for the NHL preseason on Saturday, andthe St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars will kick things off afteropening respective training camps just two days ago.

TheBlues and Stars will open preseason play at 6 p.m. at EnterpriseCenter, and from a Blues perspective, there’s no time to getextended looks at potential players looking to crack the openingnight lineup or prospects getting a lot of time with the big club.

Butthe Blues will do so on Saturday before getting more time in withthose that will make the club.

Headliningthe lineup tonight includes what is projected to be the opening nightfourth line of Ross Johnston, Pius Suter and Alexey Toropchenko.

“(Tonight),it will probably be the least amount of veterans dressed,” Bluescoach Jim Montgomery said. “We’ll get a look at some of our youngprospects. Then game two (Monday in Dallas), we’re going to haveour first power play unit go, then game three (Thursday at homeagainst the Chicago Blackhawks), we’re going to have our secondpower play unit go and the last game’s going to be both units going(Sept. 26 at Chicago). That’s going to be our team playing in thelast game.”

There’sa good sense of what the lineup will look like Oct. 2 in Dallas whenthe Blues and Stars open for keeps, but what’s going to be a battleis the spots for the 13/14 roster spots among the forwards, and itincludes Oskar Sundqvist, Nathan Walker, Dillon Dube, Otto Stenberg and JackFinley all vying for two spots.

“Ithink it’s always different with what do you have up front,”Montgomery said. “Do you have enough offense where you’re justgoing to look for checkers and grinders? Or are you lacking offensewhere maybe you bring in a guy that’s had some skill to go up inthe second line and you have one guy that’s going to be a grinder.It’s not your typical guys you’re just looking for that are goingto be just physical guys and other attributes would be can they playcenter and can they play wing? Can they win draws? Do they penaltykill or do they power play? It all depends on the makeup of your teamand I just love the fact that we’ve got a lot of different elementsthat we can choose from right now. It’s very competitive.

“Youdon’t want two guys that look the same. That you don’t wantunless you had a team that your four lines are set and you have afourth line that is an identity line like we had two years ago andthen you have a third line that’s a pure checking line that’s ahard 200-foot line and then you have two scoring lines and thenyou’re just looking for certain things, but we need versatilityright now because as we look through our lineup, we think we have afirst line, we think we have a fourth line. The second and thirdline, they have to find an identity and that’s [because] we havenew bodies, we have new people, we have other opportunities too withplayers that have been coming in.

“Ithink everybody that has an opportunity to earn those spots haveshown really well. Whether it’s ‘Walks’ or ‘Sunny,’ Dubehad an excellent day [Friday]. (Dylan) Peterson I thought wasexcellent [Friday]. (Aleksanteri) Kaskimaki’s been really good andStenberg I thought had a really good day [Friday] after an averageday yesterday.”

Itmakes the limited time on ice and practice sessions so important forall these players.

“Ithink with such a short camp, every practice means a lot,”Montgomery said. “We don’t have a lot of time to make decisionsso they don’t have a lot of time to impress. It’s either you’recoming here to fight for a job and grab a job, or you’re watchingyour job disappear. If you’re not playing with any kind ofintensity and any kind of purpose out there, you’re going to beleft behind.”

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MaddoxDagenais, the No. 16 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, will make his Bluesdebut and more than likely, get sent back to juniors where he willplay a third and likely final season with the Quebec Remparts of theQuebec Major Junior Hockey League.

“Prettyexcited,” Dagenais said. “Since I was a little kid, I’ve beenwatching those games. You’re going on the ice on an NHL rink, soit’s pretty nice. I’m just going to give it my all.”

Dagenais’s father, former NHLer Pierre Dagenais, was supposed to come in to St. Louis for the game to see his son play but his flight was canceled.

Montgomeryreally likes what the 6-foot-4,186-pound can bring and feels there’s some unique traits there.

“Realintelligent player,” Montgomery said. “You can tell that he’s agifted offensive player because he always knows what he’s going todo with the puck before he gets it. Incredible release and he’sreally deceptive because he’s a little bit of a 10-to-2 skater on aclock and his feet are going that way and that makes it hard becausethe angles are completely different and he’s going to be verydeceptive, I think.

“It’snot unique, no, but Ulf Dahlen was the most famous one for it, but itmakes him slippery.”

Willhave more from Dagenais in a separate story.

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Blues Projected Lineup:

AlexeyToropchenko-PiusSuter-Ross Johnston

AleksanteriKaskimaki-Zach Dean-Justin Carbonneau

MaddoxDagenais-Jack Finley-Otto Stenberg

JurajPekarcik-Jakub Stancl-Dylan Peterson

ArsenyKoromyslov-Tyler Tucker

ColinRalph-Theo Lindstein

QuintonBurns-Lukas Fischer

JordanBinnington will start in goal and play thefirst two periods;Georgii Romanov will back up and play the final period.

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Stars ProjectedLineup:

MatthewSeminoff-Arttu Hyry-Cameron Hughes

DylanHrychowian-Artem Shlanie-Emil Hemming

CurtisMcKenzie-Jack Becker-Justin Ertel

MichaelSgarbossa-Christian Fitzgerald-Charlie Paquette

JackAnderson-Kyle Capobianco

TreyTaylor-Kyle Burroughs

JakubVanecek-Ben Gleason

RemiPoirer isprojected to start in goal; BrandonHalverson wouldbe the backup.

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