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2/17, Blues at Canucks - GDT |
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Tonight’s Game
St. Louis Blues (8-5-1, 17 points – 5th) vs. Vancouver Flames (8-3-2, 18 points – 3rd)
Game Time: 8:00pm Central
Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC
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Tale of the Tape
Goals per game: St. Louis 2nd (3.36 GPG), Vancouver 13th (2.77 GPG)
Goals allowed per game: St. Louis T-23rd (3.14 GPG), Vancouver 4th (2.08 GPG)
Shots per game: St. Louis 14th (29.4 SPG), Vancouver 19th (28.5 SPG)
Shots allowed per game: St. Louis 1st (22.6 SPG), Vancouver 15th (28.3 SPG)
Power Play: St. Louis 1st (19-of-53, 35.8%, 1 SHGA – EN), Vancouver 19th (10-of-61, 16.4%, 1 SHG)
Penalty Kill: St. Louis 23rd (41-of-53, 77.4%, 2 SHG), Vancouver 21st (43-of-54, 79.6%)
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Projected Blues Lines
Forwards
Perron – Backes – Oshie
McDonald – Steen – Tarasenko
Schwartz – Berglund – Stewart
Sobotka – Nichol – Reaves
Defense
Cole – Pietrangelo
Jackman – Shattenkirk
Redden – Polak
Goalies
Allen
Halak
Scratches: D’Agostini, Redden, Elliott
Injuries: Langenbrunner (hip, IR); Backes (groin, probable); Halak (groin, probable).
Two changes – the most notable being that Brian Elliott is a scratch tonight, while Jaroslav Halak plays back-up. Jake Allen gets another start in net; while it’s possible that Halak could play tonight, I would expect that things would have to get bad for Halak to get into the game. The other change is that Wade Redden is in for Kris Russell, which might not be a terrible idea since the Canucks bottom lines could easily be thrown out to exploit Russell’s lack of size; however, given that Redden is -7 on the season in 8 games (even if -2 or -3 of that is not on him), and that he’ll be paired with Roman Polak (-5, but similarly not at fault for all of that), it will be interesting to see if the Canucks try to get their top line against that pairing at every chance.
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From the other bench
Forwards
D. Sedin – H. Sedin – Burrows
Higgins– Kesler – Kassian
Raymond – Schroeder – Hansen
Volpatti – Lapierre – Wiese
Defense
Edler – Hamhuis
Bieksa – Garrison
Ballard – Tanev
Goalies
Luongo
Schneider
Scratches: Ebbett, Barker, Alberts
Injuries: Malhotra (eye, IR); Booth (groin, IR)
Lines are my best guess, so if they’re off (kindly) point out the errors and I’ll correct as needed. I’m expecting Kesler to center the 2nd line tonight.
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Last Game
-- The Blues jumped out to a 4-0 lead after one period and cruised to a 5-2 over in Calgary. David Perron scored twice for the ‘Note, while Patrik Berglund notched his team-leading 7th of the season and Jaden Schwartz picked up his 1st of the year. Jake Allen stopped 30 of 32 shots for his second win of the season, including a highlight-reel stick save of T.J. Brodie’s shot.
-- Daniel Sedin hit a long-awaited milestone by becoming the leading scorer in Canucks history with a pair of assists, but Vancouver blew a 3-1 second period lead and fell to Dallas 4-3 at home. Daniel Sedin, Chris Higgins and Alexander Burrows all scored for the Canucks, while Ryan Kesler made his return to the lineup and had an assist. Cory Schneider took the loss, falling to 4-3-0 on the season.
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Miscellaneous Comments
-- It was 10 years ago that these two teams met in the playoffs in a heated 7-game series that saw the Canucks rally back from down 3-1, but fans of both sides are still not really on speaking terms – and that’s with most of the protagonists gone from both sides. (Only Barret Jackman remains from the Blues, while only the Sedins remain from the Canucks.) The 4-game sweep by the Canucks in ’09 didn’t help things from the Blues POV, either.
-- The last 3 seasons, the two teams have split 6 games in Vancouver; none of the games have had more than 5 goals combined (no more than 3 for the winning team) – and none of the 6 have gone into overtime. With Luongo sporting a 1.45 GAA coming into tonight, that’s at least half a chance this game goes the same way.
-- Last Blues victory in Vancouver: October 26, 2011 (St. Louis 3, Vancouver 0)
-- Last Canucks victory in Vancouver: March 1, 2012 (Vancouver 2, St. Louis 0)
-- Barret Jackman will tie Al MacInnis for 7th on the Blues all-time games played list at 613. It’s the first of 3 games where Jackman will tie a former Blues player; Tuesday, he’ll tie Barclay Plager and then Wednesday he’ll tie fellow #5 Bob Plager before moving into 5th place (and #1 among all defensemen).
-- The Blues continue to sizzle on the PP, averaging a goal every 4:22. However, they shouldn’t bank on getting a ton of PP time tonight; the Canucks have spent just over 20 minutes more on the PP than on the PK this season.
-- I’m still not convinced Jake Allen is the long-term solution to the Blues goaltending, but as long as he can play a safe game and do no damage, that may be good enough while Halak’s groin gets healthy.
-- I remember once upon a time when Cam Barker was the #3 overall pick, and was a highly touted defensive prospect. Even as recently as 4 years ago, he was coming off a 6-34-40 season and there was hope he was going to blossom into at least a solid top-4 guy. That was 3 teams ago; he's spent all 14 games this season as a healthy scratch, and there's no reason to think that's going to change barring major injuries to the Canucks blueline. Kind of goes to show how projecting how guys will develop - even once they've hit the NHL - is an inexact science.
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Tomorrow: a recap of tonight’s game.
Later this week: That write-up of Kekalainen’s draft record while he was with the Blues? I’m close, but it’s not ready yet – and since the Blues have games Tuesday and Wednesday, look for me to post it on Thursday.
GO BLUES!
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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