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Blues fans might be encouraged by the 5-1 victory on Thursday night but it seems at most they should be cautiously optimistic. While it was good to see the power play convert, Jake Allen play a more complete game, Tarasenko be Tarasenko and Stastny get rewarded for going to the hard area of the ice, there still were some things that should be red flags to fans.
The Blues still gave up the first goal of the game. Even though the score was 5-1, the play and shots were not that lopsided. They only outshot the Leafs by 4. More concerning might be that the Leafs dominated Corsi (58-42) and had an expected goals that was 0.54 higher than the Blues. Their 16% shooting percentage was critical in the victory.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be happy with the win but I just think fans shouldn’t get too high as a result of the win over an inexperienced Leafs team that has been struggling on the road lately.
Tonight Yeo’s Blues will face a tougher test in the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins played in Pittsburgh last night, defeating the Columbus Blue Jackets in overtime on a Phil Kessel goal pushing their record to 6-4 in their last 10 games and giving them a two game win streak. The Penguins have the 4th most points in the NHL but are only 3rd in their division. The Penguins record is mostly due to their league best home record and their league best 3.53 goals for per game. On the road, they are only 10-10-3 and are averaging 3.04 goals per game while having the 6th worst road save percentage. The Penguins have lost 4 of their last 6 road games.
As you would expect given that the Penguins have Sidney Crosby, Kessel, Malkin, Kris Letang and more, the Penguins are 2nd in power play efficiency. Crosby leads the league in goals and points per game. Malkin is third in points per game. Letang is fourth in points per game among defensemen.
Letang has 8 points in 10 games against the Blues, a higher rate than Crosby who also has 8 points but in 13 games. Kessel has also done better than Crosby, notching 9 points in 13 games. Of course, none of the Penguins had points in their last game against the Blues as Carter Hutton shut them out earlier this season.
The Penguins are expected to be without Evgeni Malkin and Conor Sheary who are both on injured reserve. Given that Matt Murray played last night, expect to see Marc-Andre Fleury in net tonight in St. Louis. Fleury has a career 92.4% save percentage and 2.41 goals against average against the Blues.
Even though Hutton shut out the penguins recently, Jake Allen will get the start tonight in net. Allen is 1-0-1 against the Penguins in his career with a 90% save percentage and a 2.96 goals against average. Speaking of the Hutton shutout, Colton Parayko got the game winning goal while the 4th line contributed two additional goals from Ryan Reaves and Scottie Upshall.
Speaking of Parayko, he has picked up his scoring pace with 4 goals and 4 assists in his last 11 games. He only had 17 assists in his previous 40 games.
Expect the Blues to use the same lineup as Thursday:
Steen – Stastny – Perron
Schwartz – Lehtera - Tarasenko
Fabbri – Berglund – Yakupov
Upshall – Barbashev – Reaves
Bouwmeester –Pietrangelo
Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk
Edmundson - Parayko
Allen
Much to a number of fans dismay tonight, the Blues will not be wearing their Winter Classic sweaters as originally planned. They chose to wear them for Bob Plager’s retirement night instead.
It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers
Nashville Predator's Paul McCann,
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Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others donate in their name.
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