St. Louis has looked like 2 different teams in 2 nights. The opener in Dallas was a 4-0 shutout. Joel Hofer stopped all 25 shots in his first career season-opening start, Mason McTavish scored in his Blues debut, and Jimmy Snuggerud and Pius Suter each had a goal and an assist. A night later in Denver they lost 6-1. Colorado scored 6 times before St. Louis got on the board, and Nathan MacKinnon set up 3 goals.
Give the Blues some credit on the Colorado game. It was the second night of a back-to-back, on the road, against the Avalanche. Dallas is the better measure of what this team can do: tight defensively, scoring spread across the lineup and a goalie who handled everything. Chicago gives them a much softer opponent than either of their first 2.
Neither team is fully healthy. St. Louis is missing 2 defensemen, Tyler Tucker (knee surgery, reassessed in 6 weeks) and Logan Mailloux, plus forwards Alexey Toropchenko and Felix Trudeau. That's depth they'll notice, but no one at the level of Bedard. Chicago's list cuts deeper. Mangiapane was expected to miss at least 2 games, so he could be back by Tuesday, and Byram's absence was tied to a family matter, so the Blackhawks' blue line may look different by puck drop.
This game comes down to whether the Blackhawks team that pushed Buffalo for 40 minutes plays in front of the home crowd, or the one that got shut out in Utah. St. Louis has had a couple of days to reset after the Colorado loss. A young Chicago team still waiting on its best player now has to prove the Buffalo game was progress and not a one-off.