The Blues are looking forward to Gunnarsson joining the group as well. They traded for him with the intent of further improving their puck-moving ability on the blue line, and while the club is coming off an impressive 4-1 win over Calgary, Hitchcock believes the defensive-zone exits early in the season have been like yellow caution lights.

“It seems that that’s always the problem at the start of the year,” he said. “What I’ve seen in exhibition, and what I saw in the first league game is we were too slow back there. We’ve been really good at that for a few years now and I want to see us get back to that level, where we’re really moving our feet, eyes up, we’re making that next play, thinking ahead of the pressure, we’re not reacting to the pressure ... there’s a big difference.”

Thus in Monday’s practice at the Desert Ice Palace, the Blues were asked to execute three zone-exit drills that they could perhaps skate in their sleep. Only this time, the pressure on the puck-carrier was increased from one defender to three.

“We’re trying to get it where everybody is on the same page as far as who’s going back to get the puck and what we’re doing with it,” Hitchcock said. “With this practice time, we’re trying to make things as automatic as we can, so that there’s no hesitation in where we’re going with the puck.”