Kyrou out sick, unlikely to play against Minnesota tonight

Berube said this sickness was different from what Kyrou had last time, and was similar to what Logan Brown had in January when he missed two games.

While Berube didn't rule Kyrou out, he did rearrange his power-play units, moving Brandon Saad to the first unit and Vladimir Tarasenko to the second.

"Because Kyrou's not out here tonight," Berube said, "I wanted a shooter on that unit on that flank. On the other unit, Schenn can go on the flank there, so that's why I did that."

Alexei Toropchenko moved into Kyrou’s spot alongside Brayden Schenn and Ivan Barbashev. Logan Brown returned to the fourth line, centering Nathan Walker and Mackenzie MacEachern.

The Blues had two familiar faces back on the ice, as Tyler Bozak and Torey Krug skated with the team for the first time since their respective injuries. Krug has missed seven games with a hand injury and Bozak has missed 11 games with a lower-body injury.

"Yeah, they're coming along well," Berube said. "They looked pretty good in practice today, so it's good to see. I'm not sure of the date when they'll be back yet, but it's getting close."

Next up for the two will be contact in practice.

"Hopefully soon (they) get into a (full practice) and they can join us," Berube said.

On defense, Niko Mikkola is back in the lineup, stepping into the spot Calle Rosen has had the past five games.

"Big body, they go to the net hard," Berube said. "We're going to have to be strong around our net, boxing people out and getting in the way and blocking shots, so Mikkola adds size and is capable of doing that."

Second-place showdown

The Blues are one point back of the Wild (and have played one more game), and can jump into second place tonight.

"There's some positions that seem to available and still yet to be set in stone," defenseman Justin Faulk said, "so I think guys know that there's an opportunity here to climb in the standings. If we can finish second in the division, that would put us with some home ice in the first round, so I think guys realize that and know the importance of it. It's a big game and I'm sure Minnesota feels the same way."

"It's an important game," said Saad. "We're all jockeying for position, so we know how important it is. We know the type of schedule we have left and we want to take care of our home games especially, so they're a good team and I think it's a great challenge for us tonight."

With limited practices lately -- the Blues didn't skate on Thursday -- Berube has taken to adding an extra drill at the end of each morning skate, a short-ice battle drill that forces contact designed to add competitiveness to the morning skate.

"We haven't practiced much, right?" he said. "So you're not practicing little competition stuff and checking and sticks and things like that, on both sides, the offensive side too, working to get open, working to find space and make plays and things like that. It's a drill we do in regular practice almost all the time so just been inserting it here to get some work."

Minnesota made moves at the deadline to get more bigger and more physical. Berube doesn't think the team needs to match their physicality, and probably can't anyway.

"We just got to play," Berube said. "We're not built like them. We've got to play to our strengths. We've got to initiate physicality ourselves. You know you're going to get hit. Big deal. Just play. That's part of the game. It's not a big deal, I really don't believe it is. Move the puck quick. The sooner we get the pucks and move them, we can eliminate that a little bit too. The other thing is, tonight, it's going to be important that we're in the offensive zone, working that team, taking that forecheck, that physicality out of their game. So if we do a good job and play in the offensive zone and control the play and puck possession and make them work, that will take a lot of that away. That's going to be a big part of the game for us tonight."

Lineups 

Blues

Forwards

Saad-O’Reilly-Perron

Buchnevich-Thomas-Tarasenko

Barbashev-Schenn-Toropchenko

MacEachern-Brown-Walker

Defensemen

Scandella-Parayko

Leddy-Faulk

Mikkola-Bortuzzo

Goalie

Husso

Wild projected lineup

Forwards

Kirill Kaprizov -- Ryan Hartman -- Mats Zuccarello

Kevin Fiala -- Frederick Gaudreau -- Tyson Jost

Jordan Greenway -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Marcus Foligno

Brandon Duhaime -- Nick Bjugstad -- Nicolas Deslauriers

Defensemen

Jacob Middleton -- Jared Spurgeon

Jonas Brodin -- Dmitry Kulikov

Jordie Benn -- Alex Goligoski

Goalie

Cam Talbot

Marc-Andre Fleury

Scratched: None

Injured: Matt Dumba (upper body), Matt Boldy (upper body), Jon Merrill (upper body)