from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

"I don’t know if we’ve done that, but keep the people at the TV networks happy, I guess," Blues captain David Backes said with a shrug after the morning skate Thursday.
"Whatever it is, it is. [The Kings] are playing at the same time."

Anze Kopitar was scratching his head but couldn’t remember ever playing this late.

"I’ve never played an 8:30 game," the Kings star center said after his team’s noon CT skate.

"It’s different, for sure," added Kings veteran Jarret Stoll. "I don’t want to sleep too long today, or else I’ll get groggy. I’ll just hang out and stretch, I guess."...

"It better not get to overtime or I’m going to be asleep on the bench," said Hitchcock after his team’s 11 a.m. skate. "The gap from now to 8:30, I don’t know, there better be some good games on at 6 p.m. [7 p.m. ET] when we’re sitting in the office twiddling our thumbs. It’s a long, long day. I’ve never seen anything like this. This will be interesting."

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