"He's usually the first guy over the boards for a power-play faceoff or the first guy over the boards for a penalty kill faceoff and those are key. He's a very important player for us," Yeo said. "You don't take out a top-line center from too many lineups where they don't feel that. It's got to be a next-man-up mentality here. We have more than capable players and our focus is on the guys that are in the lineup and if we take care of our job, we give him a chance to get better and obviously we'll be stronger when he gets back."
Without Stastny, Alexander Steen figures to take over the first-line center duties tonight and Magnus Paajarvi moves up to the his line with Vladimir Tarasenko.
"Steener has lots of experience (playing center), and part of it we wanted to keep things as close to what we've had lately as possible," Yeo said. "It's pretty much the same lineup we had in Philly, just to keep some continuity there. (Paajarvi) moving into that spot gives them some speed, gives them a worker."
Here is a projected lineup based on Saturday's gameday skate in Montreal.
