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Blues sink Sharks, look to lance the Knights, solidify their playoff spot

March 30, 2018, 2:06 PM ET [4 Comments]
Jason Millen
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The Blues continue to take more strides to making the playoffs, this time with a 3-2 victory over the Sharks on Wednesday. The win put the Blues into the 1st wild card spot both in actual points and in points percentage.

Of course, the Blues used overtime yet again for the victory, their 4th overtime win in the 5 game winning streak.

Evander Kane opened the scoring just under seven minutes into the game. Colton Parayko seems to get caught a bit puck watching which leaves too much gap from Kane. Kane takes advantage of it and beats Jake Allen with a shot.

About 11 minutes later, Oskar Sundqvist evens the score with a seeing-eye shot from the wall. The goal is a great illustration of the play the Blues have been getting in the last couple of weeks. First, Vince Dunn makes a very good play at the blue line to keep the puck in and move it to Colton Parayko. His poise and puck movement have been on display even more this month. Watch it here:

Second, Ivan Barbashev has great net front presence that keeps Aaron Dell from being able to see and track the shot, allowing it to get past him. Watch it on the goal here:

The Sharks would take the lead again when Joe Pavelski scored about seven minutes into the 2nd period with a brilliant deflection of a Brent Burns shot from the point, netting the power play goal after Joel Edmundson was whistled for 2nd high sticking penalty.

The Blues would even the score on a Vladimir Tarasenko goal after Timo Meier tripping penalty. The goal was a vintage Tarasenko wrist shot.

The Blues would win the 3rd period in shots but were unable to get a goal, forcing the game to overtime where another one of the Blues recent keys to success was put on display, puck retrieval. Vladimir Sobotka’s play retrieving the puck behind the net and continuing to win the puck battle against two sharks was quite the play. His ability to find Tarasenko for the easy game winning goal took it to an even higher level.

A few games notes: Dunn played over 21 minutes; Pietrangelo over 28; Edmundson over 24 and Paryako over 23 while Barbashev almost hit 15 minutes. Edmundson tied for the team lead in shots with 4.

With the win, the Blues are on pace for 98.2 points while the Kings are now on pace for 97.8, the Avalanche for 97.1 and the Ducks for 96.9

Tonight the Blues are in Las Vegas to take on the Pacific leading Knights. The Knights are 27-10-2 at home this season but are only 3-4 in their last 7 home games and two of their wins came against the lowly Canucks the struggling Flames. They are 5-3-2 in their last 10 games but only 1 of those wins comes against teams in a playoff position.

The Blues and Knights have split games so far this season with the Knights winning 3-2 in overtime in Vegas and the Blues winning 2-1 in St. Louis. The Blues have controlled the vast majority of the play, outshooting the Knights 88-55.

The Knights are the 3rd highest scoring team in the league and 7th best in goal against per game. They are ranked 8th on the power play and 11th on the penalty kill. They are 7th best in shots against per game even though the Blues are averaging almost 45% more than their season average against them.


The Knights are led by Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson who have 73 and 70 points, respectively. Karlsson has 40 goals. Former Blue David Perron isn’t far behind with 66 points in 70 games. Reilly Smith has 60 points in 66 games. Karlsson, Machessault and Smith are a crazy combined +109.

The Blues have a 3 game road winning streak and have won 6 in a row while going 8-2 in their last 10 games. I expect Jake Allen to get the start again and Scottie Upshall to enter the lineup with Tage Thompson exiting.

It’s a great day for hockey.

Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers Nashville Predator's Paul McCann, Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and 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 will donate in their name.
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