Blues’ lineup won’t alter Kings’ plans

After the St. Louis Blues’ morning skate today, coach Ken Hitchcock told reporters that Alex Pietrangelo will play tonight in Game 3. Pietrangelo missed Game 2 because of a lower-body injury, sustained from a hit by Dwight King. The Blues are also expected to make a couple other lineup tweaks, with Matt D’Agostini moving up to the first line. These types of moves are to be expected from a team trailing in a series. The Vancouver Canucks made a lot of moves in the first round. The Kings’ challenge, as Willie Mitchell pointed out this morning, is to stay consistent in their game. Whatever the Blues do with their lineup, the Kings won’t change in repsonse…

MITCHELL: “No. I compare it to our penalty kill. A lot of teams change their power play against our penalty kill. We don’t really change too much. I think we’re confident with what we’re doing, and we’re kind of focusing on the stuff that we need to do. Same goes with lineup changes. Obviously, with individual personalities, you kind of know the style of players, if a guy is really physical or a guy is really patient or has a great shot, stuff like that. You pay attention to that, but as far as the general scope of it, we play a similar style of game and it’s a matter of just being prepared and executing our game.’’

Mitchell also talked about the return of Pietrangelo to the Blues’ lineup…

MITCHELL: “For us, we’re going to focus on the same things. Obviously, he’s been a key player for them this year. But like I said, it’s more about what we’re doing. If we execute what we should, then we’ve got a shot to win a game. That’s what we want to do. A strong start again, like last game, and improve on our game last game. We felt we didn’t play very well after we got the early lead. Sometimes it’s tough, mentally, when you get a lead like that. We’re just looking to play more of a solid 60 minutes.’’