5:00 PM: The Blues have announced that Thomas and Parayko are both expected to play through their illness on Sunday. Kessel and Walker will step out of the lineup in their place.
4:00 PM: The St. Louis Blues could be without two pillars of the lineup when they visit the Utah Hockey Club on Sunday. Top centerman Robert Thomas and top defenseman Colton Parayko are both questionable for the matchup due to illness NHL.com’s Lou Korac reports. Parayko also missed St. Louis’ Friday loss to the Colorado Avalanche, while Thomas left the team’s Sunday practice early.
St. Louis turned toward depth defenseman Matthew Kessel to fill in for Parayko on Friday. He was paired with Parayko’s typical partner, Cam Fowler, and recorded no scoring and a -2 in the outing. The Blues aren’t carrying any other extra defenders, meaning Kessel will step up once again should Parayko miss another matchup.
How to fill in for Thomas will be a much harder question. He has served as the team’s top-line center for the entirety of the season. The team struggled significantly when Thomas missed 12 games between October and November, posting a 4-7-1 record and getting outscored 3.75-to-2.33 on average. The Blues turned towards their litany of depth forwards to fill in for Thomas’ vacancy, with each of Alexandre Texier, Radek Faksa, and Nathan Walker earning routine ice time in his absence.
This time around, Oskar Sundqvist seems like the depth option that’d get the nod, with Faksa and Walker already playing routinely. Sundqvist has been a routine healthy scratch under Jim Montgomery’s reign, and has just three points in 10 games in January and nine points in 38 games this season. He’s fallen to the role of de facto extra forward for the Blues, but Thomas’ absence could force him back into the lineup. That circumstance would likely elevate Brayden Schenn to the Blues’ top line and slot Sundqvist in between Jake Neighbours and Zachary Bolduc on the third line.