ANAHEIM, Calif. – The St. Louis Blues come into town tonight as we enter the final 10 games of the 2022-23 season. The Blues, of course, are a team that Ducks defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk is quite familiar with. Many of the faces that he shared the ice with as a member of the Blues are now long gone, but their identity remains the same.

“(Their blue line is) built a certain way,” said Shattenkirk. “Their forwards are pretty big, two-way guys as well. I think it’s a matter of having more fight (and) more compete than them, first and foremost. They’re going to have size but we can use our quickness (to) move the puck quickly in their zone, force them to skate a little bit more. I think that’s an important aspect of it.”

“(St. Louis is) a team that I think we might be able to catch on the transition and on the rushes so if we’re backchecking hard and turning picks over, I think that will help us a ton and we can generate a lot of odd-man rushes off of that.”

Shattenkirk skated in his 200th game as a member of the Ducks on Sunday against the Vancouver Canucks and spoke candidly about his tenure with Anaheim to this point.

“You know, it’s crazy—three years flew by. We had that quick season to start (in 2020-21) so that was an adjustment—just getting used to the guys—it was still kind of a Covid year. I think coming into my contract here, we knew what was going on with the team. There was definitely a process here and a rebuilding focus so I think I knew early on that my job coming into the locker room was going to be to try and help the young guys and try to be a leader. (Try) to add any sort of insight that I could to the young guys, but it’s been up and down.”

“I think I’ve had some flashes of who I can be as a player and some moments that, certainly, I wish I was stronger whether it was offensively or defensively. I think part of that goes with the growing pains of the team, but I think I’ve just tried to be as consistent as I possibly could.”

“(Assistant coach Mike Stothers) has pressed upon me to fill a role—more of a defensive role—in certain instances, trusting me to go out there in key situations whether it’s the end of the game (or we’re) up by a goal. That was something that was new for me as a player and I enjoy it. You always love it when you get a little extra responsibility and hope that you can take it and run with it.”

Head coach Dallas Eakins preaches a simple mindset and ‘winning today’. Shattenkirk echoed Eakins’ sentiments from Thursday’s morning skate press conference about how you have to practice what you preach.

“We’ve gone through some tough times here over the past few years. Sometimes it can be hard to say ‘forget about what happened the night before, let’s get better today’. But I think focusing that negative energy that you might have into having a good practice, taking care of yourself away from the rink, whatever it might be.”

“It’s beneficial and I think it’s important going forward to know that when you do start to get a team here that’s winning and things are going well, (if) you lose a tough game, you have to be able to park that thought. If you can get through these times and be able to do that at this stage, I think it’ll be a lot easier in the future for a lot of these guys.”

Eakins feels the same way. While the season has certainly been trying, the Ducks head coach is proud of how the team has not broken at all.

“We never ever shattered and I think that’s a huge testament to—especially our veteran guys in the room— some of our young exuberance,” said Eakins. “These things can get really ugly. It happens. But it all comes down to the character in the room, the values in the room and how the staff is going to come in every day as well.”

Adam Henrique practiced with the team for the first time since suffering a sprained MCL on Feb. 21. He spent time working individually with Eakins at Great Park Ice yesterday.

“The great thing about Rico is he’s one of those guys who’s so tuned into his body that he knows exactly what he needs,” said Eakins. “He’s inching along and he seems hungry to play, so we’ll see where all that goes. Any time when a guy’s been out that long, his teammates are always happy to see him back out there.”

Brett Leason and Max Comtois draw back into the lineup tonight with Jayson Megna being a healthy scratch. Frank Vatrano was absent due to personal reasons but is only expected to miss tonight’s game. John Gibson will start in net after Lukáš Dostál started on Thursday against Winnipeg.