Blues notebook: Schenn ups the physicality in playoffs

For the Blues, exhibit No. 10 on that topic would be alternate captain Brayden Schenn. The stat sheet showed the veteran forward with no goals and a modest two assists through the first five games of the Blues’ first-round playoff series with the Minnesota Wild.

But yet, he’s been one of the team’s most valuable players in the series.

“He’s been very valuable for me,” coach Craig Berube said. “I know you look at the scoresheet — again, there’s no goals. But his physicality and his hard play, that wears teams down. He does a good job of it. He’s a very physical player. He plays extremely hard. He does all the little things, and the goals will come.”

During the regular season, Schenn was one of nine Blues to score 20-plus goals, with 24. And largely because of cracked ribs that sidelined him early in the season, he did it in only 62 games — easily the lowest number of games played by any of the nine.

Schenn has always been the type of player who never backs down. He’s willing to drop the gloves when necessary and is never shy about contact.

“He does it all,” Tyler Bozak said. “He plays hard minutes against their best players. He puts his body on the line, finishes his checks, goes to the hard areas.

“It seems like he’s always in the scrums and that’s no easy task, especially against a big, strong, tough team like Minnesota is. He’s obviously a guy you can rely on and sparks us pretty much every night and gets us going.”

The interesting thing is that Schenn has raised his physical play to another level in this series — to the point that he’s regarded as a villainous player by Wild fans. He gets booed a lot at Excel Energy Center. Not only did his 22 hits lead all Blues players in the series through five games, it was more than any Minnesota player as well.

“He’s super physical,” David Perron said. “He creates a lot of space for us that way. And I think at times the games at home we play a lot against their big boys over there.”

Meaning the “GREEF” line of bruisers Jordan Greenway-Joel Eriksson Ek-Marcus Foligno. Since being switched from centering the third line to playing left wing on the Ryan O’Reilly-Perron line, Schenn’s physicality has been even more important helping to keep the Wild honest.

Line reunion

During Game 5 on Tuesday, Robert Thomas opened the game centering Brandon Saad and Jordan Kyrou. But as the game progressed, Berube mixed him in with Vladimir Tarasenko and Pavel Buchnevich.

For Game 6, he had Thomas back with Buchnevich and Tarasenko — a line that had great success down the stretch for the Blues.

“Well, I put him back last game for a number of shifts,” Berube said of Thomas. “I thought he was better in the game. I thought he was skating better and had the puck more than he has. I feel he’s coming.”

Thomas has had a relatively quiet series with just three assists in the first five games. Moving him back with Buchnevich and Tarasenko had as much to with getting Thomas going as it did with the fact that Ivan Barbashev has struggled at times in the series.

“But he’s done some good things, too,” Berube said, referring to Barbashev. “I mean, he’s done a good job on the kill. He’s been physical. Made a nice play to Vladi on the goal (Tuesday).

“I mean, we all look at points all the time, I get that, but it’s not just all about points. It’s about checking and doing other things, too. He has the capability of doing that kind of stuff and he does it for us.”

After centering for Buchnevich and Tarasenko in Games 4 and 5, Barbashev played between Saad and Kyrou on Thursday.

Thunderbirds win

Not only did goalie Joel Hofer stop 28 of 30 shots for the Springfield Thunderbirds, he scored an empty-net goal in the T-Birds’ 6-2 victory Thursday over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Springfield leads 2-0 in the best-of-five playoff series.